In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Sokovia is a fictional eastern european country situated near the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In reality, its streets and squares were played by many locations including those in the Aosta Valley, Italy, Peel House in the UK, and Verrès, Italy.
LOCATION: VARIOUS (See Below)
SHOW: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Sokovia: The Forests
The opening of the film finds the Avengers doing battle with the remnants of HYDRA in a wooded area. These woods may look familiar to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as they have previously appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger as the “Italian” woods, and also in Thor: The Dark World as Vanaheim, plus other countless movie and television shows. The sequences were shot in Bourne Wood in Farnham, UK which is close enough to London to be an easy location to film wooded and forested areas.
Sokovia: The Castle
A previous article here on MCU: Location Scout covered the details about the HYDRA research facility and castle, which is located in the Aosta Valley in Italy.
Sokovia: Novia Grad Dwellings
A number of other locations in the Italian Aosta Valley were used for scenes with Sokovian citizens confronting Tony Stark’s Iron Legion or evacuating the city from Ultron’s horde. These were scenes that Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) were able to be on-location in Italy to film.
The background plates when one of Iron Man’s Iron Legion instructs citizens to back away were shot at Via E. Chanoux, 132, 11026 Pont-Saint-Martin AO, Italy, right near the corner of Via Roma. You can see the HYDRA research facility has been composited into the background.
Another town, Verrès, served as the locations for the beginnings of the evacuation of Novi Grad by Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye. The Apartment that Scarlet Witch removes the family from overlooks Via Caduti della Libertà, 6, 11029 Verrès AO, Italy.
Hawkeye can be seen overlooking Vicolo S. Egidio, 13, 11029 Verrès AO, Italy as the citizens stream out of the local shops and apartments.
Another scene of Sokovians escaping the city, as they cross over a pedestrian bridge was also shot in Pont-Saint-Martin at the Via Roma bridge, Pont-Saint-Martin, Italy overlooking the plaza below
As Ultron’s robots start showing up en masse, Hawkeye stabs one in the face as it comes up over the bridge near Via Caduti della Libertà, 2, 11029 Verrès AO, Italy. Also Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch fight off the bots, protecting civilians just off the bridge in the intersection of two streets, which is just another angle of the scene below.
Hawkeye takes aim at several Ultron-bots from in front of this building located at Via Martorey & Via Caduti della Libertà, 11029 Verrès AO, Italy.
Sokovia: Downtown Novi Grad
The town of Aosta served as the background plates for Quicksilver’s evacuation and fight scenes with Ultron’s bots.
We first see him tearing up Ultron bots that come crawing up from under the pavement in a Parking Lot at the Piazza Plouves, 11100 Aosta AO, Italy.
Quicksilver then speeds into an intersection and pauses for a moment in front of ruined wall that is located at Via Torino, 2, 11100 Aosta AO, Italy. Due to the special effects involved, it is unlikely that Aaron Taylor Johnson (Quicksilver) was on-location for these scenes.
Sokovia: Novia Grad Church and Town Square
The majority of the large crowd sequences and scenes that involved multiple Avengers fighting Ultron, were shot at the, now defunct Peel House at the Metropolitan Police Training Centre. This white building used had been used in many film and television projects, including the 2007 police comedy Hot Fuzz.
Since this location was to be torn down shortly after filming, the crew was able to build lots of Novi Grad’s town center, as well as Ultron’s church all around the building.
The north side of Peel House was used for the part of town where the car bridge gets torn off, and Captain America saves a woman from a falling car. It also serves as the location for the SHIELD lifeboat landing site. This side can be identified by the single statue of Robert Peel that was unable to be relocated and was used in the shots.
The south side of Peel House was set up as town center with the Kiosk and statues of two individuals, as well as the abandoned church where Ultron started his journey and fought the Avengers in the finale. All parts of both of these locations was heavily modified with green screens and other special effects, such as adding in the Italian mountains and skies.
A massive undertaking, Joss Whedon and the location team for Avengers: Age of Ultron pulled off a monumental job in creating a city, an country, from several disparate locations around Europe.
If you enjoyed this article and want to hear more about Age of Ultron, please listen to the latest Agents of SHIELD: Case Files podcast as Josh and Jay discuss the film during Agents of SHIELD’s hiatus!
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Behind every scene in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a location. Some are iconic. Some are functional. Some are completely fantastic. But all of them are there to support the story.
Here at the MCU: Location Scout, Jovial Jay digs deep to uncover the real-world filming locations behind your favorite super hero films. From Iron Man to Inhumans and everything in between!
Having grown up on comics, television and film, “Jovial” Jay feels destined to host podcasts and write blogs related to the union of these nerdy pursuits. Among his other pursuits he administrates and edits stories at the two largest Star Wars fan sites on the ‘net (Rebelscum.com, TheForce.net), and co-hosts the Jedi Journals podcast over at the ForceCast network.