TERMINATOR 6 - Feminism Day

Producers of the film Terminator: Dark Fate decided on Madrid over Mexico City as a filming location because of insecurity in the Mexican capital, director Tim Miller said.

At a press conference in Mexico to promote the upcoming film, Miller said that a few factors pushed the production to forgo filming in Mexico, even though much of the sixth installment of the Terminator franchise takes place in the capital. Specifically, the Terminator team was nervous after the 2017 murder of Carlos Muñoz Portal, a location scout for the Netflix series Narcos in Temascalapa, México state.

“The last nail in the coffin was the murder of a scout as he was looking for locations for the series,” Miller said.

The director added that budget concerns also played into the decision to film in Spain; because the crew had already been filming in Budapest, it would have been more expensive to bring them to Mexico.

The film was shot in the Madrid neighborhoods of Pueblo Nuevo and Lavapiés, although changes were made to make it seem more Mexican. The façade of a mechanic’s shop was repainted with the name “México Motor,” and many cars were painted pink and white to make them look like Mexican taxis.