Making of

his epic international adaptation of the Jules Verne classic stars David Tennant as explorer Phileas Fogg, Ibrahim Koma as Passepartout and Leonie Benesch as young journalist Abigail ‘Fix’ Fortescue.

A Slim Film + Television and Federation co-production, the eight-part series had a budget in the region of GBP40 million. Massive sets were built to recreate 1870s London, Paris, New York as well as villages in Arabia and India, the streets of Hong Kong and a Pacific island. At various points there were up to 3,000 people working on the production, says executive producer Simon Crawford Collins of Slim Film + Television (pictured below with Ibrahim Koma).

Adding to the complexity of the shoot, Covid-19 forced filming in South Africa to stop in March 2020 after just three weeks in production. The producers had to quickly repatriate cast and crew, restarting again in Romania in November and completing the shoot in Cape Town in March 2021.

The majority of post production took place in Paris, while legendary composer Hans Zimmer, scored the soundtrack from Los Angeles. The series was adapted by a team of writers led by Ashley Pharoah (Life on Mars) and Caleb Ranson (Child of Mine), and helmed by film, television and music video director Steve Barron (The Durrells) with the late director Charles Beeson and Brian Kelly also directing a number of episodes. The producer is Peter McAleese.

Around the World in 80 Days was produced for the European Alliance formed by France Télévisions, ZDF and RAI, with additional co-production partners, Masterpiece PBS (US), Peu Communications (South Africa), Be-Films and RTBF (Belgium) and Daro Film Distribution (associate producer).