Where in Ukraine was Hobbs and Shaw filmed?

Idris Elba's super-engineered villain has the most ingenious secret lair in "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw": the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 

Filmmakers were planning to use the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster, the world's worst nuclear catastrophe, as a location even before awareness was turned up following HBO's "Chernobyl" mini-series, which has earned 19 Emmy nominations.

"It wasn’t a statement. It was more like, where would this nefarious high-tech organization hide underground?" says director David Leitch. "It’s just this place people wouldn’t want to go. No one is going to want to snoop around Chernobyl."

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Brixton is shown driving his convoy into the plant (featured in the first shots of the trailer), compelling Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs and Jason Statham's Shaw to break in secretly and then bust out. 

Listen to this week's episode of  USA TODAY's podcast, The Mothership, to hear our Film Critic's review of "Hobbs and Shaw" in the player below.

But it wasn't actually Chernobyl they shot at. While tourism to the shut-down nuclear plant and the evacuated area in Ukraine (about 100 miles north of Kiev) has boomed in the series' wake, filmmakers used a power plant stand-in.

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They traveled to the northern city of Doncaster, England, to film around the recently decommissioned Eggborough coal-powered plant, which allowed the stunt teams to shoot scenes featuring the off-road, custom-made Rock Crawler and the MAN Truck.

Loved for exhilarating stunt sequences and extravagant car chases, the Fast and Furious franchise has been a hit with audiences worldwide since 2001. The latest release, Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw took to a deserted power plant in Doncaster, UK to film an action sequence set in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

While Chernobyl, Ukraine is having a moment of popularity due to the success of HBO series Chernobyl, which followed devastating the events of the 1986 nuclear explosion, the location in Hobbs and Shaw is Brixtons secret underground lair. Sets for the interior were built at Shepperton Studios in Surrey but on-location filming took place at the recently decommissioned Eggborough power plant in Doncaster, North Yorkshire. Doubling for the Ukrainian nuclear plant, the site was described by Supervising Stunt Coordinator Chris O'Hara as "stunt heaven".

The now defunct coal-powered station has eight cooling towers and isolated areas. O’Hara explained, “the Eggborough power plant ended up just being such an amazing set piece for us. Visually, it was spot-on. The terrain and environment allowed for so much cool stuff that we could adapt as needed. We had both main unit and second unit up there racing Rock Crawlers, Range Rovers, motorcycles and MAN trucks. It was just this amazing playground that we could do whatever we wanted to before they demolished it all. We were in stunt heaven”.

Elsewhere in the UK, Glasgow doubled for London during a street pursuit that sees Brixton on a Triumph motorbike pursued by Shaw’s in a McLaren 720S. The production was drawn to Glasgow’s wide streets that are less congested than those in London, after previously filming scenes of Fast & Furious 6 in the city.

The film is the first standalone vehicle in the Fast and Furious franchise, which has amassed more than USD5 billion worldwide. Hobbs and Shaw has already opened with a USD60.8 million US box office, in addition to a USD180 million global take and is expected to perform well over the summer period.

The UK provides a 25% tax relief on qualifying film production expenditure, regardless of budget for British qualifying films that either pass the Cultural Test, or qualify as an official co-production. There is a minimum UK core spend of 10%.

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