The Handmaid’s Tale fans rejoice! An official announcement has been made for the sequel of the series, The Testaments, to start shooting. The filming will begin this coming December in London.
The Testaments Will Begin Filming in December
The Cinemaholic reported that The Testaments will begin filming in December in London, UK. The location is also confirmed on IMDB. This is a much different location than its previous ones, which were mainly set in Ontario, Canada, and The United States. The possibility of seeing this new series announced in 2024 is indeed high.
Since this is a sequel, it is possible that a few of your favorite characters will be shown on screen once again. Aunt Lydia is confirmed to be one of them.
What is The Testaments About?
“The Testaments” is a novel written by Margaret Atwood in 2019, serving as a sequel to her 1985 work, The Handmaid’s Tale. This story unfolds 15 years following the events of its predecessor and is told through the perspectives of Aunt Lydia, a character from the original novel, as well as Agnes and Daisy, two young women living in the contrasting worlds of Gilead and Canada, respectively.
Margaret Atwood penned The Testaments in collaboration with the ongoing The Handmaid’s Tale TV series. She shared insights with the show’s producers about the direction of the sequel and ensured that certain characters’ narratives remained consistent, regardless of their portrayal in The Testaments. This alignment was necessary because the television series is set some years apart from the events described in the novel.
Bruce Miller, the producer of the TV series, has acknowledged that the storyline of the new novel will be considered as the series progresses. In early 2023, Miller made the decision to step down as the showrunner of The Handmaid’s Tale to concentrate on adapting The Testaments for television.
Miller told The Hollywood Reporter “The Testaments was an independent curveball created by Margaret Atwood for the series I was working on. I think she had had it in her head for a while. I tried as much as possible, and I’m still trying, to not really make The Handmaid’s Tale about The Testaments. The way Margaret did it, which is wonderful, is that you close one and you say, ‘I don’t have to open that. But let’s open the next one and see what’s in there. It could be anything.’ It is a continuation, but it’s more like a separate chapter. The horizons are more limitless.
A few years ago, Atwood discussed her book in a video from the Associated Press while in London. Is it a coincidence that filming will also happen there? Or is the scenery and monuments detrimental to the story? We’ll just have to find out for ourselves when the show airs on TV.
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