Even at its liveliest, cinema can only ever be a refrigerated medium, relaying images to us that were shot months, years even decades earlier. But this week there was an exception to that rule. Woody Harrelson’s directorial debut, Lost in London, was broadcast live to more than 500 cinemas in the US, and one in the UK, as it was being filmed on the streets of the capital at 2am on Friday.

As if that were not impressive enough, the picture was shot in a single unbroken 100-minute take with a cast of 30 (plus hundreds of extras) in 14 locations, two black cabs, one police vehicle and a VW camper van festooned with fairy lights. Actors who try their hand as a director typically start off with something small-scale – a sensitive coming-of-age story, say, such as Jodie Foster’s Little Man Tate or Robert De Niro’s A Bronx Tale. With Lost in London, Harrelson went as far in the opposite direction as one can imagine. This was edge-of-the-seat, seat-of-the-pants film-making. He didn’t just jump in at the deep end: he did so into shark-filled waters.

Other movies have been completed in a single take, most recently Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria, but the live component added a unique suspense. The audience at the Picturehouse Central in Piccadilly Circus had the extra thrill of knowing that what they were watching was happening right outside at that very moment, on streets and sets only minutes from the cinema. That it came off with barely a hitch was a credit to a tightly drilled crew, including the dexterous camera operator, Jon Hembrough, and the cinematographer, Nigel Willoughby. That the finished film was also a larky, freewheeling jab at celebrity culture rather than simply a virtuoso experiment is down to Harrelson, who also wrote the screenplay.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Harrelson with Owen Wilson in rehearsals. Photograph: Alex MacNaughton

The film follows Harrelson in a comic restaging of a night in 2002 when he ran amok in London and was arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage. (An opening title card reads “Too much of this is true”, while a key scene is set in a restaurant called La Petite Vérité.) It begins with Harrelson coming off stage after a poorly received theatre performance and cursing himself for taking on another dramatic role. His fans concur. One tells him she misses Cheers while another asks: “When are you gonna make us laugh again?”

It’s the least of his woes. After a tabloid splash on his infidelities prompts a bust-up with his wife, Laura (the excellent Eleanor Matsuura), he takes refuge in a club with his best friend, Owen Wilson. At least he thought they were besties. Only Wilson lets slip that his best pal will always be Wes Anderson. A crestfallen Harrelson harrumphs that Anderson “hasn’t made a decent movie since Bottle Rocket – and come to that, neither have you”. Wilson disparages The People vs Larry Flynt only to have his performance in Marley and Me roundly mocked (“You were out-acted by a dog”). It’s a glorious celebrity slanging match, like The Trip with added fisticuffs, and the one scene that reaches euphoric comic heights.

The rest is never less than pleasing. Harrelson is an affectionate director, finding memorable bits for performers all across the cast list, and his writing is peppered with arresting phrases. Accused of breaking the ashtray in a taxi, he complains: “It was useless. It was like the cab’s appendix.” When Wilson asks dreamily, “Can a police car pull over another police car?” the line has the resonance of a timeless philosophical inquiry.



But then the film is suffused with spirituality, from the mystical cabbie who accepts payment in the form of a poem to the fleeting appearance by Willie Nelson, “the Texan Dalai Lama”, who materialises when Harrelson is at his lowest ebb. Only once he is truly humbled can the actor make amends for his sins. He tells a friend at the start of the night that Hollywood is “like royalty without borders” but the film cuts him down to size repeatedly. He tries to convince bouncers of his fame by singing the Cheers theme song only to be sent to the back of the queue; a police detective mocks his career choices (“Money Train? What a joke!”); he is reduced to grabbing money from the hands of a disabled homeless man. No one values his celebrity currency.



Live-shooting with Woody Harrelson at 2am: 'There's something about the terror of it I love' Read more

Bumps and wrinkles in the film would doubtless have been remedied with the luxury of reshoots. The difficulty of lighting so many locations meant the image was sometimes muddy and indistinct, which was a particular shame in the nightclub scenes, where Sophie Becher’s plush production design deserved a better showing. The encounter with a belligerent cabbie was shrill and needed finessing. There were also a few inconsistencies, such as a morning scene that occurred in the dead of night. Post-production may correct these elements for a DVD release. Nothing, though, will quite match the sensation of having watched the messy but miraculous birth of a genuine oddity: part celebrity satire, part mea culpa, part site-specific, one-night-only art installation.

</s>Image copyright Alex MacNaughton Image caption The film is loosely based on a chaotic night out Woody Harrelson had in London in 2002

Woody Harrelson said directing his ground-breaking live film project was like "walking on a high wire".

Lost in London was filmed in multiple locations in the capital in the early hours of Friday.

In a cinematic first, the film was shot in a 100-minute single take and broadcast live to 550 US cinemas - and one in the UK.

But the project was almost derailed by the discovery of a suspected World War Two bomb just hours before the shoot.

Waterloo Bridge - where the closing scene of the film takes place - was closed for a few hours but reopened just in time for the live shoot to go ahead as planned.

Image copyright Alex MacNaughton Image caption Eleanor Matsuura plays Harrelson's wife Laura

Speaking after the filming ended around 03:40 GMT, Harrelson was incredulous at the timing of the "bomb" discovery.

"That thing has been there for 70 years and they discover it tonight? That's impossible!"

Lost In London was shot on a single camera, involved a crew of 325 and more than 300 extras who had been rehearsing for four weeks.

"I would never do this again. No way. It felt like walking on a high wire," said Harrelson afterwards.

There were no major gaffes - although one actor walked out of a scene, forcing Harrelson to ad lib during a phone call until the character returned.

Image copyright Alex MacNaughton Image caption Woody Harrelson during rehearsals

"It felt like five minutes," Harrelson said. "It was only a matter of seconds. But, boy, those were some painful seconds."

The film was screened in just one cinema in the UK, London's Picturehouse Central, where it received an enthusiastic reception.

The comedy plot was loosely based on a real-life night out that Harrelson had in the capital in 2002 in which he ended up getting arrested and spending time in a police cell.

The film opens with the words: "Too much of this is true."

Harrelson, playing a version of himself, is seen coming off stage in the West End to discover he's the subject of a tabloid sex scandal just before he goes to meet his wife in a restaurant.

The film includes a fight in a nightclub and chase sequences on foot and by car.

Image copyright Alex MacNaughton Image caption Woody Harrelson with co-star Owen Wilson

Much of the comedy comes from the scenes with co-star Owen Wilson - and the script is sprinkled with references to Harrelson's past projects, including Natural Born Killers and Cheers.

"It was pretty thrilling," Wilson said after the filming.

"I had a lot of anxiety about doing it a couple of weeks ago but we practised... and I was really happy to be a part of it. Maybe I should start doing theatre."

Musician Willie Nelson turned up in a cameo role as did U2's Bono, as a voice on the end of a phone.

"I felt like we took some risks. It was scary - the whole process," Harrelson said.

Harrelson's next project will see him join the Star Wars franchise with a role in the spin-off movie about the young Han Solo.

Did he think Hollywood would ever adopt the as-it-happens style of Lost in London?

Harrelson laughed: "If someone was thinking of doing it all they'd need to do is talk to me and I would talk them out of it."

Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.</s>Director:Woody Harrelson. Cast: Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Willie Nelson, Eleanor Matsuura, Martin McCann. 100 mins

Lost in London is a one-off live feature film, broadcast to cinemas internationally just as it was being shot on the streets of our capital, and not only that, but a film consisting of a single uninterrupted take.

The brainchild of writer-director-star Woody Harrelson, it was an experimental tightrope-walk, supercharged throughout with the possibility of failure. Of course, any live performance, in any medium, risks the same thing, with fluffed lines, dropped props, or a lighting malfunction. But the danger of a deal-breaking logistical disaster felt all the more intense with audiences glued to this around the world.

It went alright on the night, with no hideous glitches, for Harrelson’s 100-minute recreation of a shambolic episode he personally endured in 2002, while starring in the West End play On an Average Day. (“Too much of this is true”, a caption ruefully clarified at the start.) Opening in decidedly Birdman-esque fashion with an apathetic curtain call, and ending on Waterloo Bridge an hour and a half later, with the National Theatre’s illuminated scroll visible in the background, it was a knowing dalliance between stage and film – like a promenade performance caught on the fly.</s>On Thursday night, when I made my way to a Times Square theater to see Woody Harrelson’s livestreamed movie Lost in London, I felt myself hoping that something would go wrong. Maybe Woody would flub a few lines somewhere in the nearly two-hour set piece, which was being filmed live in a single take. Maybe a camera operator would trip, compromising the single camera that was transmitting Harrelson’s misadventures to theaters across America. Maybe one of the cars, used in the film’s smattering of chase scenes, would make a wrong turn and the project would grind to a halt, actually lost in London. Shouldn’t you want every live event to fail in at least one small, but obvious, way? It certainly makes for a better story.

So I regret to report that Woody Harrelson’s two-hour screwball adventure through the streets of London went pretty well. There were a few flubbed lines, minutes on end when the sound wasn’t right, and one or two scenes where the actors’ timing was off. But for the most part, Lost in London was pretty much what you would expect from any Woody Harrelson joint: shaggily competent, self-effacing, and as earnest as a stoner's musing at 4 a.m., which was about the time in London when the livestream ended.

As the text on the screen at the beginning of Lost in London informs the audience, “too much of this is true.” The film is based on a bad night Harrelson had in 2002, during which he was arrested for trashing a taxi cab. The night begins as Harrelson, playing himself, leaves a performance of a poorly attended West End play, grousing about how he’s tired of performing dramas. He gets in a fight with his wife, Laura (Eleanor Matsuura). He heads off to a club where he runs into Owen Wilson (yes, the actual Owen Wilson). As you might expect, the night quickly starts to unravel, as Woody tries to make it home to his kids in time to take them to the Harry Potter set, encountering a furious cab driver, an earnest Irish cop, and Willie Nelson, playing himself and plucking a guitar.

As a technical achievement, Lost in London is pretty astounding. The action moves between 14 real-life locations, requiring the hundreds of people in the cast and crew to hit their marks seamlessly while the footage streamed into hundreds of theaters across the world. Single-take films, such as Victoria, have been shot before, but Lost in London had to get everything right live. It was less a movie than a stage show, or perhaps most like a live-TV spectacle — Grease: Live minus the songs, plus the challenge of navigating an actual metropolis. Often, you could hear drivers honking in frustration in background, which at first gave the film a charming verisimilitude, and then just became annoying — especially in the final scene on the Waterloo Bridge, where the actors’ voices had to compete with wind and traffic.

In a Q&A, also live, that streamed into the theater after the film, Harrelson said that he came up with the idea for the film after reflecting on his own terrible night in London. “They say that tragedy plus time equals comedy,” he said, clearly worn out and needing some prompting to remember that equation. “Even though it was a night I really did not enjoy, I thought, ‘This could be funny.’” Lost in London, on its face, is simply a good yarn. But that would ignore the fact that Woody Harrelson, a well-known celebrity, is the guy telling the story, and that it largely ends up being a story about celebrity — the ways it makes life easy or hard, or mostly just surreal. Woody tries to get into a club by singing the Cheers them, which the bouncer does not recognize. When trying to win over a cop, Woody stages a phone call to Bono (Bono’s voice was prerecorded). While bickering with Owen Wilson, he insults Marley and Me and, to Wilson’s great consternation, Wes Anderson. Woody always has the money and fame to get out of trouble, but that also makes it easier for him to get into it.

Amid the stunts and the car chases, Lost in London meditates on the peculiar Tao of Woody, a guy famous mainly because he seems so ordinary, and because of that, is not ordinary at all. Before the livestream began, the theater rolled clips of Woody’s famous friends telling him just how terrible his idea for a livestreamed movie was. The joke: Of course he’s going to actually try to make his stoner yarn into an actual thing, and of course he’s going to have the talent and means to do it well. Or simply: What kind of monster would try to stop Woody Harrelson?</s>Woody Harrelson is making his directorial debut in way no other filmmaker has before.

Harrelson will present his first film, “Lost in London,” as a live, single-take endeavor live-streamed into cinemas Thursday night.

Drawing on what he’s called one of the worst nights of his life, Harrelson will careen around London with Owen Wilson and Willie Nelson along for the ride.

“I really love theater and I really love film, and I always wanted to marry the two,” Harrelson told CNN. “It’s the most dangerous idea I’ve ever had, only because I followed through on it -- I’ve had dangerous ideas I didn’t follow through on.”

The undertaking involves 30 actors, 14 locations and four vehicles -- and one camera. “It’s monumental, this undertaking is monumental,” he said. “We got 24 sound people on this. This may be the most complicated sound thing ever attempted.”

The live filming will begin at 2:00 a.m. Friday morning in London, so audiences in New York will be able to watch it at 9 p.m. Thursday, while audiences on the west coast will see it at 6 p.m.

“It’s being distributed through Fathom events, they’re the ones putting it into over 500 cinemas,” Harrelson explained. “And the life after this -- I’m having good conversations with iTunes.”

Earlier this week, Harrelson had called on many of his famous friends to help him promote the endeavor in a unique way -- by recording testimonials begging him to cancel the ambitious project.</s>For his first film behind the camera, writer-director-star Woody Harrelson has taken a number of recent cinematic and broadcast innovations, most notably one-shot movies (Victoria and Russian Ark), real-time storytelling and live broadcasts, and rolled them into one extravagant event.

Lost In London was beamed live in 500 screens across America but just a single cinema in London on account of its 2am shoot. The film contained 24 locations, including a restaurant, a nightclub, a police cell and Waterloo Bridge (whose sudden closure almost derailed the show), and more than 30 actors.

The preamble to the London screening was filled with clips of well-known celebrities (including Daniel Radcliffe, Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lawrence) teasing Harrelson for taking on what they jokingly referred to as a great folly. Harrelson’s script maintains this light-hearted tone as it recounts details of the worst night of his life when he was arrested for smashing the back of a taxi on June 7, 2002.

Harrelson has written his own character as a schmuck. He’s on the front page of the tabloids for partaking in an orgy with three women and lets his wife, Laura (Eleanor Matsuura), find out when she picks up the papers at a restaurant. Instead of going back to the hotel with his wife and two kids, he decides to go and party with an Iranian prince, and from that point on, his night goes from bad to worse.

Despite being based on true events, the nature of the plot means Lost In London eschews realism as it aims for comedy, though its least successful moments veer into pantomime.

Scenes often feel stilted and some of the performances are so exaggerated it appears like actors have forgotten they are performing for the camera rather than appearing on a West End stage.

At its best, the film has the quality of a Wes Anderson picture, which is ironic as it is over Anderson that Harrelson and Owen Wilson (Leonardo DiCaprio was the actor Harrelson actually bumped into on the night) have a fight in the film’s best scene. In dialogue worthy of the Coen brothers’ Hail Caesar!, Harrelson complains about the cost of using a fixer to keep the story of his orgy out of the papers.

The banter also sees the ‘best-friends’ attack each other’s movies and hint at tabloid cover-ups by George Clooney, Lady Gaga and Daniel Day- Lewis.

Harrelson’s penchant for witty Mamet-esque put-downs is not matched by his plotting. The story is cute and silly with too many fairytale elements. US country crooner Willie Nelson even shows up as an imaginary friend.

Nonetheless, as a technical curiosity Lost In London is a revelation. The camerawork by director of photography Nigel Willoughby (Downton Abbey, Penny Dreadful) is deeply impressive and recalls the fleet-footed style of Anthony Dod Mantle’s Dogme95 work.

Whereas Sebastian Schipper’s one-take wonder Victoria had the luxury of post-production to grade and work on the sound, here the most remarkable technical feature is the great sound work. Over 150 microphones were used to pick up the dialogue while pre-recorded music and a phone conversation with Bono are seamlessly intertwined with the live action. That said, a couple of scenes did inevitably have dialogue that sounded like a badly dubbed Hong Kong action movie.

It was a magic night of cinema which felt truly innovative, but it will be interesting to see if the film holds up after some post-production work and it is released as a stand-alone work. Without doubt it is good enough that several distributors around the globe will be happy to take a punt. US sales company Bloom has boarded the project ahead of the European Film Market in Berlin.

When did the idea to tell this story about this night in London come to you?

I thought of it a few years back. What do they say, “tragedy plus time equals comedy”. I thought after the fact, even though it was a night that I didn’t enjoy, “this could be funny”. I tinkered around with the idea and then developed it.

Why did you want to do it as a live broadcast event?

Initially, I wanted to shoot the story in real time and this got me thinking about the merging of theatre and film. I thought, “How is that theatre if there is no live audience?”, so then I thought that we could live stream it. I found out the reason that it has not often been done before is because there are a million obstacles; it is so difficult to do. The first person I called was [cinematographer] Nigel Willoughby as I’ve been a big fan since the first time I saw The Magdelene Sisters; he’s a great DoP and true artist. When he said he’d do it, I said “great”.

What was most challenging part?

We did have a snafu in one of the scenes. That was in the phone call. We overworked him so much and [actor] Peter [Ferdinando] is supposed to come in on the phone call and he just blanked out for a moment and missed his cue, so you see me and Martin [McCann] just riffing on the phone until he arrived. [Woody watches scene] That seemed like three minutes, but actually it was only a matter of seconds. I guess it wasn’t so bad.

Getting Owen Wilson and Willie Nelson in the cast – how did that come about?

When I started writing the script, it was with Leonardo DiCaprio as he was the real person I bumped into on the actual night. But I couldn’t think of a way to make it funny, so I wrote in Owen. At one point I was speaking to Owen on the phone and he said, “I’m here with Willie Nelson” and Willie asked if I could write him in. So I did.</s>Shot over two hours on the deserted streets of after-hours London, Harrelson's directorial debut doesn't know what it wants to be.

If one were to judge “Lost in London” solely on the impressive technical feat of producing a live feature film in a single take over the course of two hours, “Lost in London” would be a resounding success. Unfortunately, that’s not how movies work. While Woody Harrelson’s directorial debut experiment went off largely without a hitch, it’s unclear if anyone would care about “Lost in London” if it weren’t filmed live. Despite its unique production, the script (written by Harrelson) suffers from a plot line that drags even as its star hustles to keep up, Hollywood insider jokes that fall flat despite being low-hanging fruit, and a culturally tone-deaf script that is not worth straining to hear over the canned background noise.

Inspired by the true events of one “wild night” Harrelson had in 2012 (celebrities are so crazy!), the movie begins with Harrelson, as himself, exiting a West End theater where he is acting in a play, to meet up with his wife, Laura (Eleanor Matsuura), for dinner at the confidently named La Petite Vérité. (If this is vérité, the Maysles are rolling in their graves). Harrelson is in a rush to get her home to the hotel, so he can “take advantage of her,” but his true aim is to divert her attention from the tabloid cover splashed with his mug, along with the three “birds” he supposedly bedded. The camera pivots to follow two young women down a spiral staircase to the ladies room, where they have retreated to powder their noses and hate themselves (“I used to hate my nose. Now I hate my chin”). When they exit, having loudly discussed Harrelson’s scandal, we see Laura exiting a stall and grabbing up the tabloid in question.

READ MORE: ‘Lost in London’ Trailer: Woody Harrelson’s Live Film (Yes, You Read That Right) Hits Theaters Next Month

Once back upstairs, an unnamed Arab prince beseeches Harrelson to join him for just one drink, which Laura decides he should do after she no longer wants anything to do with him. He reluctantly obeys, and they agree to meet at the hotel at midnight to talk. Thus begins an epic all night saga that takes him from a Bohemian-themed after-party to — actually, he pretty much just goes to that one party and then goes to jail. Sure, a live movie might not have the luxury of using multiple shooting locations, but if Harrelson is trying to invoke “After Hours” or even “The Hangover,” this crazy night is surprisingly static, though not uneventful.

At the club, he runs into his “best friend” Owen Wilson (though Wilson insists his best friend is Wes Anderson). That begins an insider baseball repartee concerning whose movies are better, providing the film’s closest thing to a comedic exchange. Jokes this easy should be funnier. Hollywood satire can be deliciously fun — just look at the popularity of HBO’s “Entourage” — but “Lost in London” could have used a little more Ari Gold and a little less name-dropping. Celebrities making fun of themselves works much better on late night.

With talk of chakras and breathing and human connection, Harrelson is clearly attempting to say something, though exactly what is unclear. But the movie’s wealth of racially insensitive and otherwise middling jokes don’t qualify it as a comedy either. The character of Laura endures at least three Asian jokes during her short time onscreen, (“Asians are the masters of hiding emotion”), and a character named Saeed is repeatedly referred to as “Seaweed.” To top it all off, the entire plot basically revolves around a philandering rich white guy who eventually keeps his wife after walking out of jail scot-free.

READ MORE: ‘Wilson’ Trailer: An Extremely Neurotic Woody Harrelson Discovers He’s Got A Teenage Daughter With Laura Dern

There are absurdist details that hint at Harrelson’s obvious love of cinema, like a particularly funny sight gag that sends restaurant-goers toppling to the ground after Harrelson’s kids tie everyone’s shoelaces together, or anachronistic flashes of choreographed dancers in a club stairwell. Cinematographer Nigel Willoughby (“Downton Abbey”) deserves singling out for infusing his single shot with lively energy. Willoughby stays tight on Harrelson and circles the action without dizzying the viewer. At times, the camera almost takes on a persona.

As a director, Harrelson seems to be grasping at elements of far better movies. The live component, while impressively executed, rarely alters the movie in any meaningful way. Reaching for something between “Victoria,” Sebastien Schipper’s single night, single take drama, and “The Hangover,” he lands with a soundless thud that is neither here nor there.

“Lost in London” played live in movie theaters on Thursday, January 19th.

Stay on top of the latest film and TV news! Sign up for our email newsletters here.</s>(CNN) – Actor Woody Harrelson aims to make movie history this week by shooting a movie in a single take, with a single camera while beaming the entire film live to cinema audiences.

The story is based on one of the worst nights in his life and, as he told CNN, he could hardly have picked a tougher challenge on which to make his directorial debut.

“Lost in London” was inspired by a night 15 years ago which began with Harrelson leaving a nightclub, which developed into a car chase and ended with him in a police cell accused of damaging a London taxi cab. Harrelson said, “I wouldn’t say it haunts me but I don’t look at it and laugh, it was a dreadful, dreadful night.”

(Is it cathartic in a way, addressing this story?) Harrelson replied, “Yes it is cathartic. It feels like I needed to get this story out. It just kept developing out of this desire I’ve always had because I really love theatre and I really love film and I always wanted to marry the two. It’s the most dangerous idea I’ve ever had, only because I followed through on it; I’ve had dangerous ideas I didn’t follow through on. We got 30 actors, we got 14 locations, and we’ve got four cars, so we’re getting in and out of vehicles. It’s monumental, this undertaking is monumental. We got 24 sound people on this. This may be the most complicated sound thing ever attempted.”

Harrelson continued, “My best buddy in the story and in life is Owen Wilson and also one of my best buddies Willie Nelson is doing it. Both of those really make me happy.”

Shooting takes place between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. on Friday in London, which means cinema audiences in the U.S. get a chance to witness movie history on Thursday night. Harrelson said, “It’s being distributed through Fathom events, they’re the ones putting it into over 500 cinemas, and the life after this, I’m having good conversations with iTunes.”</s>Woody Harrelson can't jump, but he can sure brawl.

The film star, 55, was snapped late Thursday on the London set of his directorial debut, Lost in London, filming a scene in which he fought with a wheelchair-bound man who conked him over the head with a wooden leg.

The scene, which took place outside a nightclub, was set up as he was seen arguing with a woman outside after an incident involving his girlfriend in the film. He wore a black zip-up hooded sweatshirt, a blue dress shirt and black pants for the ultra-violent sequence.

The black comedy marks the Oscar-nominated actor's first stint behind the camera, as the story comes from real-life events he experienced in England circa 2002.

Speaking to CNN Thursday, the star delved into detail about the course of events that drive the film's storyline.

'Plot-wise it's just based on an incident that happened in my life, which was one of the unhappy nights of my life, it was terrible,' the LBJ star explained. 'There [were] some issues with me and my wife, and some issues with the justice system in this little town here.'

In addition to the hype behind his debut, and the personal nature of the plot, there's plenty of excitement swelling around the production as Harrelson attempts to break the film-making mold with an innovative format tailored to today's tech-crazed times: The entire movie will be shot on one camera, in one take, within the same square mile - and it will be live streamed to more than 500 U.S. cinemas.

The innovative - and somewhat uncertain - style, according to Harrelson, 'just kept developing out of this desire I've always had because I really love theater and I really love film and I always wanted to marry the two.'

The uncertainty came into play Thursday as one of the filming locations, Waterloo Bridge, was cleared by authorizes in London following the discovery of a World War II era explosive in the River Thames. While pedestrian access had been cleared as of early Friday - giving access to camera crews working on the film, the area was swarmed by law enforcement and the nearby Victoria Embankment was shut down. It was not immediately clear Friday how the events impacted filming.

Harrelson, who told the outlet he's seeking to screen the movie at next month's Berlin Film Festival, described the project as 'the most dangerous idea [he's] ever had.

'Only because I followed through on it; I've had other dangerous ideas, but I didn't follow through on them,' he added.</s>Alex Walton’s Bloom has boarded international sales for Woody Harrelson’s directorial debut Lost In London, which it will introduce to buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin next month.

Harrelson, who also wrote the project, stars alongside Owen Wilson and Willie Nelson and, as reported last month, it’s being shot in the UK capital city this evening and broadcast live to U.S. movie theaters, giving audiences the chance to watch a film shot in real time.

Story is loosely based on a crazy night full of real-life events. Harrelson plays himself as he struggles to get home to his family while run-ins with royalty, old friends and the law all seem to conspire to keep him from succeeding.

Ken Kao of Waypoint Entertainment produces with Harrelson while special events company Fathom Events is facilitating the live production of the project.

“Lost in London is such a unique and ambitious concept,” said Walton. “It’s going to be remarkable, funny and ground-breaking. We can’t wait to see what Woody and the team pull together, and present it to buyers in Berlin.”
The Woody Harrelson biopic Lost in London makes history as the first full-length feature film to be filmed and theatrically released simultaneously.