Entertainment
17 April 2025
Love. Land. Legacy. Those are the central pillars of our new drama series Ransom Canyon starring Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly. But while the love triangles and family friction may take center stage, the drama’s stunning setting is sure to turn heads and inspire some new travel plans.
While the on-screen characters call Texas home, Ransom Canyon was filmed throughout New Mexico, including our state-of-the-art studios in Albuquerque as well as the historic Los Poblanos inn & Organic Farm and nearby ranches. “Honestly, you can actually see Texas from some of the ranches,” says series creator and showrunner April Blair. “Mood and topography-wise, it’s very, very similar.”
Behind the scenes of ‘Ransom Canyon’. (Courtesy of Netflix)
The production leaned heavily on locals to bring these vibrant spaces to life, hiring more than 700 New Mexicans to work on the series including 380 crew members, 300 background actors and 40 principal actors. Additionally, participants of Netflix’s Up Level Production Accounting Training Program in Albuquerque gained essential hands-on experience in production accounting through their work on Ransom Canyon.
While we’ve produced a wide range of series and films in New Mexico, including Stranger Things, Army of the Dead and The Harder They Fall, Ransom Canyon marked an important milestone as the first Netflix production to power its basecamp and catering almost entirely by the sun. “We went from April to June without turning on a generator,” says line producer/co-executive producer Suzanne Geiger in the behind-the-scenes video below. “It’s astounding.”
The show upgraded its production with large mobile batteries, solar trailers and solar battery systems that created a renewable energy microgrid and reduced production’s overall diesel generator fuel usage by over 50%.
These innovative technologies helped reduce noise, air pollution and wrap-up times, and increased flexibility on where the crew could shoot.
Director of Production Policy at Netflix Nick Maniatis, Bernalillo Country Representative Pamelya Herndon and New Mexico Film Commissioner Steve Graham at a special advanced screening of ‘Ransom Canyon,’ sponsored by Netflix and Film New Mexico, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. (Courtesy of Netflix)
To celebrate Ransom Canyon’s premiere, we partnered with the New Mexico Film Office to host a special advance screening of the first episode for the show’s cast and crew, their friends and family, and local policymakers at the National Hispanic Cultural Center Bank of America Theatre in Albuquerque on April 16.
So saddle up and book your ticket to Ransom Canyon, now streaming on Netflix.
