Mexico City estimates $24m loss due to filming of latest James Bond movie

A small business organisation in Mexico City has claimed that the city will suffer over $24m in losses as a result of the new James Bond thriller Spectre being filmed there.

With segments in the likes of Rome and the Austrian Alps already in the can, the Spectre team are working on the film’s opening scenes in the city, described by Bond producer Michael G Wilson as the “biggest opening sequence we’ve ever done”. It involves 1,500 extras in Day of the Dead costumes, along with a helicopter fight and a chase through a festival parade.

All this action has meant streets have had to be closed for a number of days. “The closure of streets and pedestrian malls (in the historic old town) is directly and indirectly affecting (for the worse) more than 6,627 businesses,” claims Canacope, the chamber of commerce for small businesses in the city.

Businesses were paid up to $130 a day for the inconvenience, but Canacope has said the sums are too small to properly compensate them.

There have already been a couple of controversies around the Mexico shoot. The film’s crew were accused of antisocial behaviour on the flight to the country, including smoking cigarettes, vomiting and urinating in the aisles, and tampering with the cabin doors – producers Eon said they were investigating the claims and couldn’t yet comment on them.

There was also the suggestion that Mexico threatened to pull its incentives for filming unless certain script demands were met, but Wilson denied the country had a say in the creative direction of the film. The Spectre production was offered $20m in tax incentives to film in the country, and the film features a ‘Bond girl’ role for Mexican actor Stephanie Sigman.