In the new thriller "Heart of the Beast", Brad Pitt plays James Belmont, a former special forces soldier who survives a plane crash and is left stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog Odin, a German shepherd. Directed by David Ayer, the film premiered at the San Sebastián festival on 22 September and hits cinemas on 25 September. Just one small detail: there's no Alaska in it.

The whole film was shot on New Zealand's South Island, starting in March 2025, with Queenstown as the base. The production was looking for mountains that could play another country - and found them on the other side of the world.

Lake Wakatipu and the road to Glenorchy

The adventure begins in Kinloch, on the northern shore of Lake Wakatipu - a long lake squeezed between mountains, where Pitt shot the seaplane scenes. Visitors there go kayaking, sail on the lake or stop at lookouts along the shore. A 45-kilometre scenic road runs from Queenstown to Glenorchy along the lake's northern edge, and the Bennetts Bluff lookout offers one of the best views of Wakatipu and the Southern Alps. Glenorchy has a historic wharf that mirrors the mountains.

Beyond Glenorchy, the trail leads into the Paradise valley, through beech forests, rivers and Southern Alps terrain - exactly the wilderness the production wanted to sell as Alaska. This is also where you find the Routeburn, one of the Great Walks, which passes through glacial valleys between Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland.

Mountains that look prehistoric

Across the lake, The Remarkables range dominates the view. The road up to the ski field climbs high and reveals rocky peaks, alpine meadows and small mountain lakes, and in winter the snow makes the alpine look even starker. North of Queenstown and Wānaka lies Mount Aspiring National Park, named after the 3,033-metre peak known in Māori as Tititea, with glacial valleys, rivers, rainforests and mountain ranges that look like they predate humanity.

Milford Sound, where rainfall is measured in metres

The crown jewel is Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park, about four hours' drive from Queenstown along the Milford Road. The road passes the Mirror Lakes and runs through the Homer Tunnel before the valley opens up. The 16-kilometre fiord is dominated by Mitre Peak, almost 1,700 metres high, while Lady Bowen Falls and Stirling Falls drop straight into the water. The region gets about seven metres of rain a year, so after a heavy storm countless temporary waterfalls pour down the cliffs. The whole area is part of Te Wāhipounamu, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Pitt, they say, grew very attached to Odin during filming. Understandable: in a film where the landscape plays an entire state, the dog was the only actor who didn't have to pretend. And how many of the Balkans' own gorges and lakes have tourism authorities ever seriously offered to the world, with the same persistence New Zealand shows in selling its own?