Mayday Filming Locations

Apple TV’s Mayday sends Ryan Reynolds behind enemy lines, but the Cold War adventure was assembled far from the Soviet Union. Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the 1987-set action comedy stars Reynolds as U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly, whose secret mission over Russian territory goes wrong. His unlikely lifeline is Nikolai Ustinov, an eccentric former KGB agent played by Kenneth Branagh. Mayday premieres globally on Apple TV on September 4, 2026.

The story needed American military settings, period California, Soviet streets and large-scale action environments. Production found most of them in Canada and Hungary, with specialist aerial photography also carried out in France.

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Montreal Was Mayday’s Main Canadian Base

Mayday began filming in the Montreal area in early March 2024 under the working title Blackbird. Quebec reporting followed the production across Montreal and nearby communities through the spring.

Its most visible transformation took place in Montreal’s Village, where part of Sainte-Catherine Street was rebuilt as San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. Crews installed “Welcome to Gaslamp Quarter” signs, palm trees, period cars and fake storefronts to turn Quebec into 1980s Southern California.

The redressing went beyond a few signs. Set reports identified fabricated businesses including an art gallery, bookstore, tattoo studio, Mexican restaurant and lighting store. Reynolds was seen filming there on May 4 in a U.S. Navy uniform.

Chateauguay and a Retro McDonald’s

The production also moved outside central Montreal. Scenes were filmed at Manoir D’Youville in Chateauguay, southwest of the city, during the earlier Quebec shoot. The location is confirmed, although the filmmakers have not publicly identified exactly what the property represents on screen.

Another period makeover appeared at Deli Plus near Villeray Street and Papineau Avenue. The restaurant was converted into an old-style McDonald’s facade before the Village filming. With Mayday set in 1987, the retro branding and period vehicles helped make present-day Montreal look decades younger.

Budapest and Korda Studios Hosted the Hungarian Shoot

The second major production base was Hungary, where Reynolds arrived in May 2024 as filming moved into the movie’s Soviet-set material and bigger action sequences.

IMDb lists Korda Studios among Mayday’s Hungarian filming locations. The complex is in Etyek, about 25 kilometers west of Budapest, and has seven sound stages, permanent backlots, workshops and substantial exterior construction space. Public records have not identified which individual Mayday sets occupied specific Korda stages, so it would be misleading to assign particular scenes to a soundstage.

Budapest itself also went on camera. Hungarian reporting linked Heroes’ Square to Mayday, with the landmark dressed for a Moscow military parade featuring Soviet-era vehicles and military equipment.

Dunaujvaros and Salgotarjan Became Soviet Streets

Filming spread well beyond Budapest. Dunaujvaros, an industrial city south of the capital, became one of the movie’s most striking Soviet-era backdrops. Production activity centered on Vasmű Road and the Lower Danube promenade in early June.

Local coverage documented a large ballistic missile carrier and described Vasmű Road as the setting for an action sequence in which the vehicle travels through a red-flag-lined Moscow street. The large-scale location work gave the filmmakers real streets and architecture rather than requiring every Soviet exterior to be constructed on a backlot.

A separate unit filmed in Salgotarjan on June 7 under the Blackbird title. Rakoczi Road, Pecskő Road, Marcius 15 Street, Erzsebet Square and Fő Square were used for a sequence that local production staff said was set in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. Wartburgs, Trabants and other period vehicles filled the streets. The principal stars were not required for that day’s filming, indicating that much of the material involved background or second-unit work.

The Baracs area near the M8 motorway was also associated with the production after a missile-carrier vehicle appeared during local road restrictions. Early reports treated the Mayday connection cautiously, but the same kind of vehicle was later documented during the Dunaujvaros filming.

The Fighter-Jet Footage Came From Southern France

One location missing from many early filming databases is southern France. Ahead of the movie’s release, Daley and Goldstein revealed that Mayday used real aerial photography for its fighter-jet sequences, with the aircraft material filmed in the south of France instead of relying entirely on digital effects.

That makes Mayday’s production footprint broader than the Montreal and Budapest listings alone suggest. Montreal supplied the main Canadian base and doubled for 1980s San Diego. Hungary provided Korda Studios and numerous Soviet-looking urban locations, while southern France supplied the practical aerial footage.

At least one industry production directory also lists San Diego, California, among the project’s locations. However, the most extensively documented Gaslamp Quarter scenes were unquestionably recreated in Montreal, and there is considerably less public information identifying what, if anything, the main cast filmed in San Diego itself.

Public records also differ slightly on the exact production schedule. IMDb lists filming from March 11 to June 19, 2024, while Goldstein announced that the main shoot had wrapped on June 5. The safest description is that Mayday filmed from early March into June 2024, with separate units and location work likely accounting for the differing dates.