Matt James’s highly anticipated season of The Bachelor will begin production this month as The Bachelorette wraps with no COVID-19 cases. The Bachelor franchise took a hit when it came to filming in the time of a global pandemic. Production of the hit reality show was halted as businesses were shut down in order to ward off the growing number of cases.
The Bachelor and Bachelorette had to find ways to adapt to the shelter in place orders quickly since they announced Clare Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette pre-covid regulations. The show’s ability to think on its feet lead to a historic season as The Bachelorette, with season 16 becoming the first season to film all at one location. Bachelor Nation quickly found out that Clare would be dating the contestants at the La Quinta Resort & Spa in Palm Springs as opposed to the traditional Bachelor mansion that has housed the show since its beginning. The contestants and all members of the cast and crew were tested and quarantined prior to entering the “bubble” in order to adhere to government-placed safety guidelines. This coupled with an unprecedented turn of events when it comes to the casting shakeups, which include Clare dropping out of the season only to be replaced with Tayshia Adams after 12 days of filming. Also, before Clare’s season had even begun filming, a former contestant-to-be on Clare’s season, Matt James, was instead cast as the next Bachelor amid calls for the franchise to diversify its cast and crew.
Matt James has become the show’s first Black male lead and will face similar filming guidelines as Clare Crawley, except it will be filmed at a resort on the east coast. In an interview with Deadline, Rob Mills, SVP of Alternative Programming for ABC, revealed that the new season will start production at the end of September in a similar “pandemic proof bubble.”
When asked how the season of The Bachelorette filming went in relation to Covid cases, he revealed, “Right before we started, around July 4, as excited as everyone was to get it started, we’d heard about other productions that had had outbreaks even in a bubble and had to shut down.” He continued, “So, for us, starting was not the victory, it was the finish. The fact that it’s in the can and we have an entire season of The Bachelorette that will air is fantastic. It’s a big deal to have all of our signature shows on this fall.” Mills went on to say that the resort-style filming will carry over to Matt Jame’s season, which will be filmed at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Pennsylvania.
The new season is still set to air in 2021, and Bachelor Nation is already anticipating another dramatic season. Matt James has been in headlines in relation to his friendship with former Bachelor alum Tyler Cameron, and he’s already charmed fans with his “nice guy” persona. It’s no doubt the upcoming Bachelor will have tons of twists and turns as they venture into filming another season in the pandemic Bachelor bubble.
