The cost estimate of the British national broadcaster's series was 7 million euros, said Miseikyte of the Baltijos Filmu Paslaugos (Baltic Film Services) that works with the United States crew.
In her words, HBO representatives have already visited Lithuania, which defeated Hungary in the competition for the project. They looked at possible filming locations in Elektrenai, the Vilnius thermal power plant and other utilities, Vilnius and Kaunas, with more information to be available after a meeting with director Johan Renck.
"We have already done the initial scouting, HBO representatives were here, we went to a number of power plants, took a tour to Ignalina to realize the scale. So far, we are coordinating with HBO representatives and their producers to decide the final number of filming days, the cost estimate of the movie and the possibility of filming everything in Lithuania. We will know more about the project after meeting with the director and the director of art who plan to come to Lithuania before the end of the summer," Miseikyte told BNS.
In her words, although the film budget will be finalized until the end of the year, it is already clear that the cost estimate will not be smaller than the War and Peace, a large six-episode BBC production filmed in Lithuania in 2015.
"I definitely know that this will be a five-hour large film, the scale of filming will be similar to that of the War and Peace project, which took 17 weeks to film, Chernobyl will be filmed in 16 weeks. During the filming of War and Peace, over 7 million euros were spent in Lithuania, 300 people worked in the Borodin Battle alone, plenty of costumes were created, etc. I believe we will finalize the budget before the end of this year, and it will not be smaller than that of War and Peace," said the producer.
In Miseikyte's words, although Chernobyl will not include any mass scenes, the crew will face other challenges, for instance, making Vilnius neighborhoods look like they did back in 1985.
She said preparations for the filming should start in November, with filming work opened in March or April.
