Cattle, hens and horses were left “terrified” by multiple explosions and loud noises from a Brad Pitt-produced Hollywood blockbuster which resembled the sound of “a war going on”, reports the Larne Times.
Pitt’s production company, Plan B, is currently shooting the 20s-set adventure film The Lost City of Z near Ballygally in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. James Gray’s movie stars Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller and Tom Holland in the story of British soldier and spy Percy Fawcett (Hunnam), who in 1925 disappeared into the Brazilian jungle with his son in search of a supposedly advanced civilisation he called Z, and was never seen again.
Locals near the filming site have been sharing photographs of explosions with local media. “It started last Monday [14 September] with bangs, gunfire and small explosions,” Jason McKillion, of Feystown Road, told the Times. “Then on Tuesday the bigger explosions started. [They] shook the house and windows and the boom echoed through the glen.”
“My neighbour’s horses were in the field near the film set and they went spare, trying to jump the ditches. On Wednesday, there was another explosion and my animals went daft. The chickens were squawking and the dog was outside, barking and shaking.
“I went to Larne and when I came back the dog was shivering under a chair and the hens had all gone. Then I heard there had been another explosion while I was out.
“I was sitting outside and the chickens had just come back when there was another explosion, even louder than the last. Another neighbour’s cow and calf jumped the hedge and the cows were bellowing in fear.
“On Friday morning, it sounded like a war was going on, and later there was another explosion. My neighbour was feeding bulls in the field when it happened. They stampeded and knocked him and the feeding trough over.”
McKillion said he supported filming in the area, but believed people living there should have been notified that the shoot might be noisy. “If we had a schedule, we could put the animals into barns,” he said. “At the minute we are on tenterhooks.”
He added: “It’s totally agricultural here, totally tranquil. There’s never a sound and that makes it more disruptive as the animals aren’t used to the noise and they just went hysterical. This is supposed to be an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) and tranquillity. It was madness for a week and we don’t know if filming is finished yet.”
When The Lost City of Z was first announced in 2008, Pitt was due to play the role of Fawcett, who is said to have been George Lucas’s inspiration for Indiana Jones. But the Fight Club star eventually signed on as a producer instead, and it is not known if he is on site in Northern Ireland.
Fawcett was a friend of famed authors H Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle, and helped inspire the latter to write The Lost World. The mystery of what happened to the adventurer remains one of the 20th-century’s enduring puzzles: an estimated 100 would-be rescuers have died in more than 13 expeditions (one as recently as 1996) sent to discover his fate.
Hollywood movies involving Pitt seem to be making a habit of upsetting residents on this side of the Atlantic. In November 2013, Fury director David Ayer was forced to apologise to people living in Shirburn, Oxfordshire, after they were woken by the sound of explosions and gunfire in the small hours of Remembrance Sunday as film crews shot battle scenes until 2.30am. Pitt starred in the second world war drama as US Army staff sergeant Don “Wardaddy” Collier. A spokesman for The Lost City of Z’s production team told the Telegraph: “The Glenarm area where some scenes were filmed last week covers approximately 2,000 acres of land and the production team made every effort to contact land owners beforehand. All work involving explosives was undertaken in line with relevant legislation.”
