Palma.The Cornwall-based replica galleon Earl of Pembroke sailed into the Port of Soller yesterday ahead of her starring role on the Hollywood film being shot on location here later this month.
The 150 million dollar film is being mostly shot in Germany but Majorca is being used as a key location with the likes of Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Natalie Portman, due to be shooting in Formentor and areas around Soller such as sa Calobra. Filming on the island is due to start on September 15.
Built in Sweden in 1948, the Earl of Pembroke was originally named Orion and traded timber in the Baltic sea and on the British east coast. In 1974 she was laid-up in Denmark before being bought by her current owner in 1979.
At that time the Earl of Pembroke underwent a complete restoration programme lasting six years, converting her to the magnificent galleon she is today.
Based in St Austell, Cornwall, the ship is regularly used for training days and passages around the UK coast and over to the Continent.
She also has a long list of film credits to her name including: Treasure Island, A Respectable Trade, Moll Flanders, Cutthroat Island, Frenchman's Creek, Shaka Zulu, Longitude, Wives and Daughters - Amazing Grace and as Hotspur - for Hornblower III.
While Palma Pictures and the Majorcan Film Commission, which has been crucial in securing the film using Majorca as a location for parts of the production, are involved facilitating and helping on the ground.
Most of the crew will be coming from Germany and the best part of 200 hotel rooms have been booked in the north east of the island in and around Pollensa and Formentor.
What is more, some 200 local extras have been hired on 80 euros per day and this, according to film industry insiders, suggests that Majorca is going to be the setting for the sixth story of the multi-story film which is set on the island of Hawaii in 2321 and where life has reverted to the days of tribal living after most of humanity dies during The Fall. Zachry, a tribesman, is visited by Meronym (Halle Berry), a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization.
The Majorca Film Commission also requested for men between the ages of 25 and 45 with slightly long hair and scruffy beards to play sailors, as well as body doubles for Jim Sturgess and Jim Broadbent. This points towards the story of Adam Ewing in 1850, a lawyer visiting the Chatham Islands off the coast of New Zealand who witnesses the colonization and conversion of the Maori also being shot on the island.
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