20 Things You Didn't Know About Die Another Day
1. Beyond The Ice
Initially, the spectacular sequences involving James Bond’s Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, Zao’s Jaguar XKR, and Gustav Graves’s ice dragster were to be shot in Alaska or New Zealand.
However, the filmmakers headed to Jökulsárlón in Iceland - which had featured in the pre-credits sequence of A View to a Kill (1985) - when they learnt that the lagoon was freezing over. Nevertheless, its saltwater content meant that the ice was not thick enough to support the weight of the vehicles, so the ocean end of the lagoon was dammed, allowing thicker ice to temporarily form over it.
The special effects team converted four Aston Martins and four Jaguars to four-wheel drive with four-speed Ford Explorer transmissions to aid their performance on the ice. They also boasted V8 engines to accommodate their front missile arrays and flotation devices in case they fell into the lagoon. As the ice could not support some of the more outlandish scenes, such as the Aston Martin being flipped onto its roof, these were filmed at RAF Little Rissington in Gloucestershire.
Additional filming took place at Jostedalsbreen National Park and Svalbard in Norway because the ice melted shortly after the majority of the scenes had been captured.
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