Where Was Aquaman 2 Filmed? The UK, Mostly — and a Burbank News Set

Where was Aquaman 2 filmed? The honest answer: almost entirely in the United Kingdom. Principal photography for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom took place at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, outside London. Director James Wan has reportedly said around 95% of the film was shot in the UK. But one slice of the movie was filmed in Burbank, California: the news broadcast scenes, shot right here at L.A. Castle Studios.

The main shoot: Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom began principal photography in mid-2021 at Leavesden, reportedly spreading across multiple stages, the backlot, and an exterior water tank, the kind of footprint an underwater tentpole demands. So if you’re picturing Jason Momoa swimming through Atlantis, that happened in Watford, England, not Hollywood.

That’s the straight answer, and it’s worth giving straight. What most filming-location articles miss is the other part.

Shot here: Aquaman 2 (the news scenes)

Big movies use news broadcasts to connect their story to the real world, anchors reacting to sea levels rising, breaking-news coverage that tells the audience how the world at large is experiencing the plot. For Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, those news scenes were shot at L.A. Castle Studios in Burbank, on our virtual news sets.

And it wasn’t a one-off. Our newsroom has played the fictional network for a long run of studio productions: The Mummy (multiple scenes), Bosch, Inventing Anna, Greenland, and Deadliest Catch all shot news segments on the same stage. You can see the full list on our work page.

Why productions shoot news scenes on a virtual stage

It sounds counterintuitive. Los Angeles has plenty of real newsrooms. Here’s why productions keep choosing a virtual one instead:

• A real newsroom is a working facility. Its sets are branded, staffed, and on the air. You can’t borrow KTLA’s desk for a fictional network without clearances, scheduling around live broadcasts, and a location fee.
• The fictional network needs its own identity. A film’s news channel isn’t CNN: it’s a channel the art department invented. On a virtual set, the desk, the skyline out the “window,” the lower-thirds, and the network graphics package are all built to match the film, and they can change per setup.
• The composite happens in camera. Our sets are photoreal virtual environments rendered in real time and composited live using our CastleVision method: pioneered in 2007, now patented. Real anchor desk and props in the foreground, virtual newsroom behind, final image on the day. No green-screen shots handed to post.
• It’s fast and small. A news insert is usually a half-day with a compact unit: anchors, a director, a skeleton crew. Flying a full company to a location for that is the expensive way to get thirty seconds of screen time.
• Every look lives in one studio. National desk, local affiliate, sports desk, international feed. A film that needs three different”networks” shoots them all in one place, switching environments in minutes instead of moving trucks.

That’s why a production that shot its oceans in the UK still books its newsroom in Burbank.

Need a news set for your production?

The same stage that played Aquaman 2’s news network is available for features, series, commercials, and broadcast work. See our news set rental options, browse the Network News Set, look through everything else that’s shot on our stages, or tell us about your project. We’ll quote it for your dates.