Pop Culture Placements Featuring Fiji

Once travel borders open up, and you begin planning your next getaway, why not select a sought-after filming destination by television and movie producers worldwide?

Fiji – a ‘bucket-list’ holiday for many – has become featured in many Hollywood movies as well as popular television shows worldwide.  Here are some films and programmes that you may or may not have known have either mentioned or featured Fiji, or were actually filmed in some of the beautiful Fijian Islands!

1. Fantasy Island – When a small group of travellers are invited on to a luxurious Fijian island getaway where the island’s owner gives the guests the unique opportunity to live out their most elaborate fantasies, things quickly turn sinister and fantasies become nightmarish.  This film was entirely shot on Taveuni Island, the third-largest island in Fiji.
2. World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji – This reality television show on Amazon Prime Video explores, and tests the limits of, human physical strength and mental endurance over the course of an 11-day race.  Contestants are hiking, paddling, and climbing through challenging rocky, uneven and uphill – but very lush – Fijian terrain with the goal of becoming the winner of a $100,000 prize.
3. Castaway – this award-winning film that came out at the start of the new millennia about a plane that crashes into a deserted island starring Tom Hanks was entirely filmed on Monuriki Island, a tiny island within the Mamanuca group of islands.
4. Adrift – Starring Shailene Woodley, this epic movie is based on a true story about a young couple whose sailing expedition from the South Pacific to California goes horribly wrong as they head directly into one of the largest recorded hurricanes. The movie was filmed all over Fiji’s mainland from Suva to Rakiraki and Pacific Harbour.
5. The Truman Show – Starring Jim Carrey, this 1998 film was about a man named Truman whose entire life was filmed through a series of hidden cameras, without his knowledge, for an ongoing reality television show watched by viewers from around the world.  While the movie itself wasn’t filmed in Fiji, Truman often speaks of Fiji as a dream destination he wishes to flee to.
6. Contact – this 1997 movie, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, is about a scientist who has not only found evidence of extraterrestrial life, but is able to make contact through radio emissions.  This movie was shot in a few locations within the Yawasa group of islands.