Thanks to COVID, the world is seeing some of our amazing Central Otago landscapes through the new Netflix series Sweet Tooth.

Netflix released Sweet Tooth on June 4, and it has quickly become the Number One show for the streaming service in most countries around the world. If you watch it, you might be surprised to see familiar landscapes. That’s because producers Robert Downey Jnr and his wife Susan brought filming to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Te Tumu Whakaata Taonga the New Zealand Film Commission published some interesting facts about the impact of Sweet Tooth  being filmed here:

95% of the crew and 80% of the cast were Kiwis.

100% filmed in New Zealand.

135 total days of filming.

1,400 Kiwi vendors were used – people like electricians, builders, caterers, hair and makeup artists, costume designers, sewers, gardeners.

According to Manatū Taonga, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, our film industry supports about 21,000 Kiwi jobs and contributes $NZ 2.7 billion to GDP every year. 

New Zealand, like so many other countries, experienced a lockdown in March 2020 - leading to what New Zealand Film Commission's CEO, Annabelle Sheehan, recalled at the time as "a very challenging moment."

"We had about 47 local productions in various phases of filming and production, plus we had seven major international projects, employing more than 4,000 New Zealanders, and they all had to shut down," she explained to media.

Because Aotearoa managed to eliminate community transmission of the virus, film production was able to resume by summer, with Sweet Tooth being one of the major film projects completed here in 2020.

This viral pandemic produced some surprising results.

Sweet Tooth is a gentle, post-apocalyptic fantasy series set in the US. You’ll see signs for Yellowstone National Park set in open tussock country that feels oh so familiar. Then there’s also a vaguely familiar amusement park.

Filming for Sweet Tooth took place in a variety of places around Central Otago and the Waikato. A grungy Rainbows End in Auckland became the ‘Animal Army’ headquarters, and suburban Mission Bay was transformed into a post-apocalyptic suburb in North America.

The series itself is loosely based on Jeff Lemire’s comic book series of the same name. James Brolin narrates in deep, mood-setting tones, “This is the story of a very special boy who found himself at the end of the world.”

A deadly virus starts a world pandemic with untold numbers of fatalities. As we see the world slipping into chaos, we are shown something inexplicable happening in maternity wards everywhere. Children are being born infused with animal DNA.

We are introduced to little Gus, part deer, part boy, being taken deep into Yellowstone National Park by his father, frightened of the effects of the virus and of how hostile other human beings might be towards his son who has been born different.

After being drawn into the mystery as we progress through Gus’s childhood, interspersed with flashbacks and several different story lines, we get a sense of why Gus’s father is hiding him, and a deepening sense of mystery around what Gus’s father might not have told him, and why.

The story begins as an intimate tale of a young boy and his father, but with each episode begins to play out on a much bigger landscape.

Executive producer, writer and director Jim Mickle says on the film commission website they were about two months into writing the season’s scripts in March 2020 when COVID-19 began shutting down parts of the US. 

“Making television is such a labour and time intensive process, and sometimes when you jump into a story that has big themes and big messages, the world ends up mirroring and echoing the story. 

“Crazily enough, the real world chased so much of what we address in this show — and what the comics addressed more than ten years ago. 

“Life keeps mirroring art, and vice versa.”

“We want people to come into this world where there’s beauty and hope and adventure. 

“This is a sweeping story — we ride on trains, climb mountaintops, run through forests. 

“This is a show about what makes a family, what home really means, and why it’s important to keep faith in humanity.”

Images Netflix official social media