Exclusive: Idris Elba film Luther shot at the Lites studio in Belgium

Forthcoming film Luther, starring Idris Elba, partly shot in the water tank at the Lites Studios in Belgium earlier this year.

The BBC, Netflix, 20^th Century Fox Television and Chernin Entertainment feature spent four weeks doing water scenes at the impressive Belgian studio – three weeks prep and one week shoot. Filming also took place in the UK and Iceland.

Lites Studios offers five sound stages and a huge 1,450 square meter water stage with built in water FX, including waves up to one meter, dump tanks and water cannons.

The original Luther TV series launched on BBC One in 2010, eventually running to a fifth series that aired in 2019. Elba’s portrayal was much-garlanded, winning him a Critics' Choice Television Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. 

The Lites Studio is proving very popular with productions lined up to shoot there for the rest of 2022, including the ambitious eight-part drama series Estonia about the tragic sinking of M/S Estona in 1994, which claimed 852 lives.

The series is set to shoot from 30 May to 20 July and is being produced by Beta Nordic Studio’s Finnish banner Fisher King, in co-production with Swedish Kärnfilm and Belgium’s Panache Production and Anga Productions.