Assassin's Creed | 2016
Discover the filming locations for the big-screen adaptation of Assassin’s Creed. By the way, there’s no USA or Mexico – it was all filmed in Europe, in the desert areas around Almeria in southern Spain, the forts of Malta and in the UK too.
It seems that since the days of The Da Vinci Code, the Knights Templar have turned their attention from the Holy Grail to the Apple of Eden. Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is a descendant of the 15th century Aguilar de Nerha (also Fassbender), one of a group of fanatical Assassins bent on preventing the Templars from getting their hands on the MacGuffin of Eden, which would somehow end violence but remove free will.
The film flicks back and forth from the present day to the 15th century (with a brief stop-off in the 1980s), starting in 1492 as Aguilar de Nerha sacrifices a finger in order to be accepted into the Assassin Brotherhood.
This ritual is held in the courtyard of the 16th-century Castillo de La Calahorra (Calahorra Castle), La Calahorra, in Andalusia, southern Spain. Built in 1512 and now privately-owned, the castle stands in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range about 30 miles east of Granada.
In 1974, it was used as the retreat of rockstar Jim MacLaine (David Essex) in Stardust, the sequel to That'll Be The Day.
Fast-forward to 1986 and a village in ‘Baja California’, the long narrow peninsula of Mexico running south from Tijuana, where young Cal discovers his mother has been killed by his Assassin father, and flees as the Templars arrive.
Since the film was made in Europe, this dusty little town is on the southern coast of Spain. It’s La Almadraba, a small fishing and salt-mining village east of Almeria, on the western coast of the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park.
There’s another jolt forward to the present day and the 'Huntsville Department of Criminal Justice' in 'Texas' where Cal is now on death row.
One correctional institution, USA or Europe, looks pretty much like another, and the aerial shot is of Almeria's Penitentiary Center (Centro Penitenciario de Almeria), just a couple of miles east of Almeria itself.
Apparently executed by lethal injection, Cal is a bit surprised to awaken in the 'Abstergo Foundation Rehabilitation Center' in Madrid. He's informed by Dr Sofia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard) that, though officially dead, he's secretly now part of a radical experiment in rehabilitation.
Suspiciously, this process involves Cal reliving the memories of his distant ancestor, Aguilar, by means of a contraption called the Animus.
The exterior of the institute is CGI but the sinister interior was a vast set occupying the huge 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.
Regressing into the past, Cal – now in the form of Aguilar – attempts to rescue the son of a Sultan from the Templars, who hope to ransom the young prince. The village where the prince is discovered is El Chorrillo in the desert north of Pechina, Almeria.
This an old Spaghetti Western dating from the 1960s. More recently, it hosted scenes for TV’s Game of Thrones, and it was here that the giant sets for Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings were built.
Aguilar gives chase as the prince is abducted in a horse-drawn wagon across the nearby desert around Tabernas, a backdrop seen in countless Euro-Westerns.
Although Cal’s next trip into the past finds him about to be burned at the stake as a heretic during the Inquisition in 'Seville', no scenes were filmed in that city, but only establishing shots to be added digitally.
In fact, to find the plaza where the fanatical Torquemada (Javier Gutiérrez) is enthusiastically overseeing the burnings, we leave Spain altogether for Malta. This is the courtyard of Fort Manoel, an 18th century "star fort" (named for its shape) on Manoel Island in Marsamxett Harbour, Valletta.
Interestingly, it was actually built by the Knights of the Order of Saint John, who had settled in Malta after being expelled from Rhodes.
Many fortifications and citadels have been built on Malta over the centuries due to the island’s strategic position in the Mediterranean and several have been used in movie and TV productions.
GoT fans will no doubt recognise Fort Manoel as the place where Ned Stark was executed, but it's probably not quite so recognisable as the gladiator school of Marcinus (Denzel Washington) in Ridley Scott's Gladiator II.
Fortunately, Aguilar, along with another condemned Assassin Maria (Ariane Labed), manages to escape the flames. The subsequent parkour-style rooftop chase was filmed in the Old Quarter of Valletta, through Merchants Street and continuing onto the roof of the Basilica of St Dominic. To convince us we are in Spain, Seville’s landmark Moorish Giralda Tower was added digitally.
Torquemada sets up the handover – the Sultan’s son will be returned in exchange for the coveted apple. This set,
based on Alhambra Court of the Lions in Granada, was built within another of Malta’s military compounds, the largest, and also built by the Order of St John. It’s the 17th century Fort Ricasoli, on a promontory guarding the south entrance to the Grand Harbour of Valletta at Kalkara.
Ricasoli previously housed sets for Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy and three Ridley Scott films, Gladiator, Napoleon and Gladiator II.
Aguilar and Maria thwart the exchange and make away with the MacGuffin through the underground tunnels of Fort Delimara at Marsaxlokk down at Malta’s southeastern tip. These passages appear again as the underground areas of the Colosseum in Gladiator II. For the moment, you won’t be able to explore those tunnels yourself. The 19th century polygonal fort has been damaged by erosion and is in need of restoration, so it’s not open to the public.
Cal’s recovered memories eventually reveal that the apple was buried with Christopher Columbus at his tomb in Seville Cathedral.
The real tomb is quite a sight, being held aloft by four life-sized sculpted figures, which represent the former kingdoms of Spain.
There’s always been uncertainty about the bones it contains, as they’ve been moved around several times over the centuries. As of 2024, though, it’s claimed that DNA evidence proves that, yes, they really are the remains of the famous seafarer.
Although we glimpse the Cathedral’s exterior, the interior was filmed elsewhere, this time in England. Columbus's tomb was recreated inside Ely Cathedral, Ely in Cambridgeshire. It’s not the Cathedral’s first screen appearance – it previously became the court of ‘Whitehall’ in both Elizabeth: The Golden Age and The Other Boleyn Girl, and even stood in for ‘Westminster Abbey’ in The King’s Speech.
Finally in possession of the apple, Dr Rikkin and her scheming father (Jeremy Irons) present it to the Templars at a grand ceremony held in their London HQ.
This turns out, both exterior and interior, to be the Freemasons' Hall, at 60 Great Queen Street in Covent Garden, London, WC2.
The towering 1933 art deco landmark has proved an adaptable and frequently used location, seen in productions as varied as Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, as a nightclub in Fast and Furious: Hobbs & Shaw and as the 'International Court of Justice in the Hague' in The Hitman's Bodyguard, and even as Saddam’s ‘Baghdad’ palace in Paul Greengrass’s 2010 Green Zone with Matt Damon.
Cal, now accepting his role, disrupts the event and retrieves the apple. Along with a couple of other surviving Assassins, he strikes a triumphantly heroic pose atop Eighty Strand (formerly, and better known as, the Shell Mex Building), with its huge clock overlooking the city and the River Thames.
