Zoos in the Movies

The giraffe(s) (haven't seen the show) in The Last of Us were filmed at Calgary Zoo with green screens. Interesting that they decided to go with actual animals instead of CGI, when the rest of the scene is CGI. https://twitter.com/TheLastofUsNews/status/1635694108575510548

 

Does anyone know where the new Netflix show "Night Agent" filmed their zoo scene, if somewhere real? It's at the beginning of episode 3. The show was mostly shot in Vancouver, and this definitely isn't Vancouver. It reminds me of the outside of Bronx's World of Birds, but with a lion grotto at the base.

 

The third Netflix episode of "Night Agent" triggered me as well.
As I thought to recognized the shot of the lion cage as the old Vancouver polar bear enclosure in Stanley-park.The only thing that was changed was the sign about the lions, as it contains currently the "polar-bear" sign. And of course, they added the lion shot in; you could see not a single shot with lions at the same time as the enclosure, nor the lions together with the main characters.

I was not aware that the rest of the episode was filmed in Vancouver, but if it did it makes sense.

But your statement is that it is definitely not in Vancouver, are you sure it is not this polar bear enclosure?

 

You're right, it is! I knew nothing of the old exhibits, and photos of it didn't come up when I was looking at photos of the zoo to get an idea if the scene was from there or not, it was all chain link photos. What a neat old exhibit (though obviously better that it's no longer used for polar bears).

 

I happened to watch two more films in the past week that contained 'zoo scenes'.

Ray & Liz (2019) is an autobiographical movie about two young boys growing up with alcoholic parents. There's a sequence with one of the kids at Dudley Zoo, where he is shown watching African Wild Dogs, California Sea Lions and venturing into the Giraffe House.

Cooley High (1975) has been hailed as an alternate version of American Graffiti but with an all-Black cast, loads of Motown hits and set in Chicago. There's a 3-minute sequence where a few guys visit Lincoln Park Zoo and see Squirrel Monkeys and a large Gorilla inside tiny indoor cages. A slapstick moment infers that the Gorilla tosses poo at one of the visitors.

 

S5, Episode 7 of NCIS New Orleans has a scene where someone tries to blow up part of a zoo. A large outdoor alligator area is shown and is called the presentation area. I assume it was filmed at Audubon?

 

2012 film Ted with Seth MacFarlane, Mark Whalburg, and Mila Kunis has a few shots in the New England Aquarium.

 

This small BBC documentary by the late great Viv Stanshall features a few scenes shot at Chessington in 1975.

 

The Queens Gambit on Netflix has scenes that are meant to be in a zoo in Mexico. Upon seeing the Ape House I got a distinct Germanic impression... Turns out it was filmed in Berlin!

 

Mystic Christmas is a new Hallmark film set in Mystic, Connecticut, of which the plot is centered around the Mystic Aquarium and the releasing of a seal during Christmastime.

Hallmark's 'Mystic Christmas' filmed and set at real Mystic Aquarium

 

All that time they spent at Mystic filming and they put a monk seal on the cover?! How rude to Cork!

 

On the complete opposite side of the tone spectrum from that Mystic movie, a zoo is featured prominently in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, though no animals are actually shown. The zoo looks significantly more humane than the one described in the novel, though the one in the movie is of course already appalling.

 

Excuse you, it's a traveling marine veterinarian and the owner of a pizza shop (*not* Mystic Pizza though)

I just thought if they spent months filming the seal, after auditioning them and all and picking the one who liked all the fuss the most, they could at least manage a single photo to use? Or buy stock of a harbor seal? Hallmark is pretty "YAY USA" and it's not even a north american species

 

But it is practically identical to two US native species.

 

That don't live anywhere near Connecticut

 

Probably already mentioned but in the Madagascar series it shows Central Park zoo having lions,hippos,giraffes and more animals that it doesn’t have

 

They actually did have those animal species but they were all phased out in or before 1983 when they closed and drastically changed the old zoo for five years,and those animals weren't there once it reopened.

 

In an episode of Only Fools and Horses, there's a scene where Delboy has taken his new girlfriend and her son to London Zoo. Whilst at the Sobell Pavilions Del has to cover the young boys eyes because a couple of Monkeys are getting down to it