The third season of hit spy-thriller Alex Rider, starring Otto Farrant and Vicky McClure, exclusively premieres on Amazon Freevee on Friday 5th April, after filming in Bristol with support from our Film Office team last year.
Produced by Eleventh Hour Films, Alex Rider is based on the best-selling, global phenomenon book franchise written by Anthony Horowitz, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. It follows a London-based teenager who, unbeknownst to him, has been trained for the dangerous world of espionage since he was a child.
Season Three was one of the first productions to film at The Bottle Yard Studios’ TBY2 facility which opened in November 2022. Sets were built for the roof of a major local landmark and a variety of smaller settings needed for VFX shots, whilst production headquarters were based in TBY2’s offices. Bristol Film Office also welcomed the production team back to the city’s A Bond Warehouse where sets for MI6 division ‘The Department’ were once again housed, as they had been for Season Two.
Alex Rider Season 3 – scenes filmed in ‘The Department’ . Filming location: A Bond Warehouse, Bristol. All images © 2022 Sony Pictures Television
A number of other Bristol locations doubled for London and Malta during the action-packed six-month shoot, including: The Corn Exchange building in the Old City; Former Bank of England building on Wine Street; residential streets in Clifton; Frog Lane and Frogmore Street with cameras shooting down from Park Street Bridge above; wasteground beneath the M5 in Shirehampton; private apartments at Box Makers Yard in Temple Meads; The Loko Club under the arches in Clock Tower Yard near Temple Meads; The Galleries in Broadmead; The University of Bristol’s Goldney Hall and Fry Buildings; The George Inn in Shirehampton; Somerset Road in Knowle; Arnos Vale Cemetery and UWE Bristol’s Hewlett Packard Building. Filming also took place at nearby Wells Cathedral in Somerset.
“This was an extremely busy shoot in the studio and on location, with many scenes featuring stunts and action sequences as you’d expect from a spy thriller of this calibre. Whilst Studio 11 at The Bottle Yard’s new TBY2 facility gave producers the premium space they needed for impressive set builds, our Film Office team assisted with the complex scenes that were orchestrated on the streets, featuring everything from SWAT teams to car chases. Productions like this are hugely beneficial for the crew and companies that support Bristol’s filming economy. Around 70 cast and crew worked on the production each day throughout the six-month shoot, and at least 60% of the production team being local to our region.”
Laura Aviles, Head of Film, Bristol City Council
“Filming Alex Rider Season Three at The Bottle Yard, and more specifically being one of the first shows to shoot at their brand new TBY2 facility, was a real advantage for us. Ideally placed for Bristol’s fantastic location options which are smoothly managed by the city’s Film Office, The Bottle Yard Studios with its professional and charming support crew proved to be the only choice for us. Alex Rider defeated the baddies once again – with the help of The Bottle Yard.”
Producer Richard Burrell
22-year-old Oscar Blakeborough from Bristol, a UWE Bristol Filmmaking graduate, was one of the local crew trainees that worked on the series as a Rushes Runner. “Alex Rider gave me my first proper break into scripted TV drama. I really felt like I was a part of the production process, and I found that very fulfilling. I’m currently helping out with the last couple weeks as Rushes Runner on another High-End TV production based at The Bottle Yard Studios, and then I hope to either get another runner job or move into being a Camera Trainee.” Read a Q&A with Oscar about his experience on the production here.
Adapted from the fifth Alex Rider novel, Season Three sets the teenage spy on the tail of his greatest enemy: the elusive criminal network known as Scorpia. Under new leadership, the criminal cabal plan to extort the British Government using their catastrophic new super-weapon: ‘Invisible Sword.’ Free of The Department and aided by his closest friends, Tom and Kyra, Alex embarks on a personal mission to destroy Scorpia once and for all. Little does he know, his ties to both organisations run deeper than he ever thought possible.
The third season of Alex Rider features the return of series stars Otto Farrant (Edge of the World, Mrs. Wilson) as Alex Rider, Vicky McClure (Line of Duty, Trigger Point) as Mrs. Jones, Stephen Dillane (The Outrun, Red Election) as Alan Blunt, Brenock O’Connor (The Split, Game of Thrones) as Tom Harris, Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ (Rain Dogs, Christopher Robin) as Jack Starbright, and Marli Siu (Everything I Know About Love, Our Ladies) as Kyra Vashenko-Chao. New actors joining the cast this season include Sofia Helin (Lust, The Bridge) as Julia Rothman, Shelley Conn (Gen V, Bridgerton) as Laura Kellner, Kevin McNally (The Crown, Pirates of the Caribbean) as Max Grendel, and Jason Wong (Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, The Covenant) as Nile.
Anthony Horowitz serves as an executive producer alongside Eleventh Hour’s Jill Green and Eve Gutierrez, series writer Guy Burt, director Andreas Prochaska and actor Otto Farrant. The series is distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Television.
All eight episodes of Alex Rider Season Three will be available on Amazon Freevee from Friday 5th April 2024.