Production of High-End European Drama Shows Ramped Up to Meet Rising Demand Variety 1/20/2021
For a brief moment in mid-June, the producers of “Leonardo,” the upcoming big-budget series with Aidan Turner (“Poldark”) as the famed inventor, considered shooting the U.K. as renaissance Milan.
Luca Bernabei, CEO of the show’s producer Lux Vide, says the radical option was weighed partly because of spiraling COVID-19 rates and restrictions in Italy, and partly due to Turner’s co-star Freddie Highmore being only available for two weeks before jetting off to Canada to shoot “The Good Doctor.” But COVID was causing a similarly drastic shutdown in the U.K., meaning that in the end, Bernabei and Lux Vide head of production Daniele Passani made the decision to fly Highmore over to Italy and to build the dusty streets of Milan on the company’s backlot outside Rome.