Skyfall Istanbul locations

SKYFALL ISTANBUL LOCATIONS: JAMES BOND IN ISTANBUL

The ‘Quantum of Solace’, which premiered in November 2008, was a box-office disappointment for the rights owners of the James Bond franchise. The worldwide gross is slightly different from a previous highly successful ‘Casino Royale’: the only major difference was the puffed-up budget of 230 million compared to a moderate 102 million in 2006. These concerns resulted in a more cautious approach to spending when it came to the 23rd movie in the 007 series, called Skyfall. Initially, six foreign countries apart from the United Kingdom were considered for shooting the movie, but the January 2012 budget cut narrowed the geography to China, Scotland, and Turkey. Istanbul was to become the major foreign location in Skyfall, though it had not been the only choice for the opening sequence. Director Sam Mendes later confirmed that an Indian megapolis, Bombay, was considered for filming, as well as South Africa. Istanbul won the competition due to the lower expense while filming in Europe, easier logistics, a safer environment for the crew and actors, and working relations with local authorities, which gave us several memorable Skyfall Istanbul locations. 

Skyfall was not the first case when a legendary agent 007 visited Istanbul. Back in 1963, the franchise chose the city as its primary filming location for the second movie about James Bond. Sean Connery and his female partner, Daniela Bianchi, visited many memorable places in Istanbul, including the Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar, the Basilica Cistern, the Galata Bridge, and the Sirkeci train station. In 1999, Agent 007, this time with the face of Pierce Brosnan, revisited the city in ‘The World is Not Enough’ with Maiden Tower as a major location. The rights owner and producer, Barbara Broccoli, reminded the fans that Istanbul was Ian Fleming’s favorite city, and they should not be disappointed about the return instead of new, intriguing locations. The main filming unit of Skyfall was expected to arrive in the city in late April 2012 and shoot for a week before moving to the city of Adana in Turkey for the train sequence. The main star, Daniel Craig, was impressed with the city to the extent that he invited his wife, actress Rachel Weisz, to accompany him to Turkey. 2012 was to become a breakthrough year for Istanbul in Hollywood due not only to ‘Skyfall’ but also to ‘Taken 2’, which was filmed in the city in late 2011 and in the early months of 2012. 

A DEAD BRITISH AGENT IN THE BUILDING

The movie starts with a beautifully staged shot of Daniel Craig (James Bond) approaching the camera in a semi-lighted corridor, thus resembling the famous landmark with the barrel of a gun. In one of the apartments, he finds two dead men and one badly wounded British agent whom James calls Ronson. 007 gets his order to leave his colleague bleeding in an armchair and chase the suspect killer, who had taken the important hard drive with information. It is unclear if this meeting place belonged to MI6, but when James Bond leaves the building, we, as viewers, find ourselves in the middle of a busy street in Istanbul. ‘Skyfall’ does not try to dress up the city in the garb of some other location, though we do not see the name of the city. After leaving the building, James is picked up by Eve (Naomie Harris), who has spotted the potential target getting in his Audi and leaving the site of a crime. Patrice, who is the name of the killer, was performed by a young Swedish actor, Ola Rapace, who would later work in Luc Besson’s ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ and ‘The Last Kingdom’ TV series. James and Eve start one of the most memorable chasing scenes in the whole 007 franchise, this time across the decisively crowded streets of the center of Istanbul. 

Before getting further with the chase, it is interesting to say a few words regarding the building, which James leaves. It is unclear whether the interior scenes were filmed there, but the exterior shots belong to the old building of ‘Deutsche Orient Bank’. The bank was founded in Germany in 1905 as a part of the major effort of the Kaiser’s Empire to spread the state’s influence in the East, particularly in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. It opened several branches in Turkey, including the main office in Constantinople in the center of Eminönü district. The building was finished in 1909, two years before the death of its architect, August Jasmund (1859-1911), a Prussian creator who had worked in the Ottoman Empire for two decades. He is also known as the architect of the Sirkeci train station, which appeared in the 007 franchise in 1963. Toward the 1920s, the bank had several other offices in the city. The business was badly influenced by the World Economic Crisis and was finally liquidated after the Second World War in 1946. The building of its main office in Istanbul was used for different commercial purposes, renovated in the early 1990s, until it was finally turned into a hotel in 2020 with the remarkable name ‘Orientbank Hotel Istanbul’. The building is located on the crossroads of four streets: Sultan Hamamı Caddesi, Fındıkçı Remzi Sokak, Vakif Hani, and Büyük Postane. 

FROM A CAR TO A BIKE 

At the beginning of his escape route inside the Audi A5 across the streets of Istanbul, Patrice is unaware that he has been spotted by a British agent, Eve. The latter picks up James Bond with her monstrous Land-Rover Defender 110 and they drive along Buk Postane Street in the East direction, then turn right and cut the distance to their target in the Audi. Both cars first turn right onto Asir Efendi Street and, in a few moments, drive next to several Turkish policemen on motorcycles until finally driving into a large and crowded street market full of merchants and customers. Eve succeeds in flipping Patrice’s car onto its side. The man who has just bloodlessly killed a British agent and two others as collateral damage opens fire on both 007 and the Turkish policemen, who were unfortunate to try to find out what was going on in the center of their city. Finally, Patrice takes one of the police motorcycles (Honda CRF 250 R) and rides away immediately, followed by James Bond and Eve on another Honda and in a Land Rover, respectively. One of the most recognized motorcycle chases in world cinema begins. It will demand fifteen Audi A5 cars and fifteen Land Rovers Defenders to shoot this sequence. 

Let’s deal with the topography of the gunshot. The large open space shown to be filled with merchants is Eminonu Square, just next to the well-known New Mosque (Yeni Cami), which can be easily identified in the background. Except for several cafes and chestnut sellers, there is no bazaar on the square, and it was created for the movie to add tension to both the chase and the gunshot. The neighborhood is not strange to 007 fans since the Sirkeci train station from the 1963 Bond movie is located less than half a kilometer from Eminönü Square. The filming crew got permission to close the traffic on the square and the adjacent streets for three weeks, which included both the setting up of stage props and the filming itself. The art department of Skyfall added two hundred and fifty shops and installations to create a feeling of a crowded Eastern bazaar, while the real shop owners were compensated for those three weeks of filming and were not allowed to perform real business. Apart from cars and kiosks, the prop department even added a replica of a fountain to the location. Months of negotiations with the Turkish authorities resulted in an amazing movie sequence. It is interesting to note that the filming crew created a large street market at the walls of the real bazaar known as the Egyptian Bazaar, which appeared in Taken 2 (as well as the Eminonu Square) and in ‘The Accidental Spy’ (2001) with Jackie Chan. 

JAMES BOND ON THE ROOF OF THE GRAND BAZAAR 

After leaving Eminonu Square, James Bond (Daniel Craig) follows his nemesis Patrice through the streets of Istanbul; take into account that both men are on Honda motorcycles. A few moments later, the two ride through some kind of gate with  ‘Büyük Valide Han’ letters above the entrance. The area where Patrice and James find their way to the rooftops of Istanbul is located to the north of the Grand Bazaar and has been known since the mid-17th century. For centuries, it served many functions, including the accommodation of foreign merchants, the storage of goods or merchandise, and the accommodation of artisan workshops. ‘Büyük Valide Han’ commercial district covers a large area, centered around a huge central square courtyard, measuring 55 meters on one side, and two other smaller courtyards. When Patrice uses the stairs to dive up to the second floor, we can see the sand on the steps, which was added to make the stunt easy. It is also interesting to note an unobvious product placement in this scene, specifically packing boxes with Heineken beer, one of the promotional partners of the movie. 

A few seconds later, both Patrice and James Bond find their way to the rooftops from the second floor, though, in reality, the actual location does not have such a large opening in the wall that leads to the roof with a picturesque view over the mosque. Leaving behind the authenticity of the entrance to the rooftops from the Büyük Valide Han commercial area, we see a beautiful Nuruosmaniye Camii Mosque, the fourth largest in Istanbul, and built in the middle of the 18th century. Mosque previously made appearances in the 1963 second Bond movie and 2012, not only in Skyfall but also in ‘Taken 2’ with Liam Nisson. The picturesque panorama that opens next was shot in the north-east part of the Grand Bazaar area with Nuruosmaniye Camii in the background. The roof tile of the Grand Bazaar is a piece of history, and the filming crew had to carefully replace the original roof cover with a rubber replica on the route of two stuntmen. Apart from saving historically important building tiles, the rubber made the work of the stuntmen safer concerning the high speed and the elevation of the set. The rumors in the local press about the damage to the precious tile were exaggerated and later denied, though one of the old windows was damaged when one of the stuntmen lost control of his motorcycle. 

While the rooftop scenes were dangerous because of the elevation, the sequence inside the Grand Bazaar, which takes only a few seconds, was carefully prepared beforehand. While in 1963 Sean Connery just peacefully worked through a part of the market, in Skyfall, James Bond had to shave his opponent on the motorcycle, threading his way between hundreds of people. Grand Bazaar is one of the busiest markets in the world, with around sixty streets, four thousand shops, 400,000 daily visitors, and up to ninety million annually. The Skyfall filming crew under Sam Mendes was allowed to work here on Sundays, days off for the market. Around five hundred local citizens, mainly the owners of the shops, were invited to act as extras. On one of the days of shooting inside Grand Bazaar, the set was visited by Turkish actor Nusret Ataer, who had played a small part in the 1963 Bond, and now got a chance to have a picture with Daniel Craig, half a century after his acquaintance with Sean Connery. 

It is interesting to note that there is no train line in the historical European part of Istanbul, and the last shots in Istanbul with Patrice and James jumping on the train were filmed in the Asian part of the city, which the two men could not reach without crossing the Bosphorus. The further sequence with the train was filmed at the Varda Bridge (viaduct), not far from the large city of Adana (2.2 million citizens) in southern Turkey, roughly 600 kilometers from Istanbul.