Hollywood is now coming to Malaysia, at least in Mark Wahlberg’s eyes. Netflix’s highly anticipated thriller “The Big Fix” was extended to Penang, marking what appears to be the first time the production has been publicly confirmed outside of its announced Sydney base.
Mark Wahlberg (“Transformers: Age of Extinction,” “The Departed”) and Academy Award winner Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal,” “Venom”), the film’s two leads, were both present and active on set in the Malaysian UNESCO World Heritage city on Saturday (11th July 2026).
Production was first observed at Jawi Peranakan Mansion on Friday (10th July 2026), before the cameras moved to the iconic Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion — widely known as the Blue Mansion — later that same day, with a full crew and barricaded set visible at both locations.
The following day, cameras relocated to the vicinity of Lebuh Melayu, Georgetown, where we sighted both Wahlberg and Ahmed on set, with Kormákur overseeing the shoot in person. The continuity of the shoot across two consecutive days and multiple Georgetown locations suggests this is not a brief second-unit detour, but a substantive leg of the production’s globe-trotting itinerary.
According to the New Straits Times, Penang Island City Council mayor Datuk A. Rajendran has confirmed that filming began on Friday and is expected to continue for approximately two weeks, with production taking place across several locations including Lorong Kulit, City Stadium, Batu Kawan Stadium, and Macallum Field, among others.
The production is being coordinated locally by Biscuit Films, who were previously involved in the filming of Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts with Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh in Kuala Lumpur.
In the online space, the production’s arrival in Penang did not go unnoticed by locals. A video shared by Facebook page Rakyat E-Hailing MY showing Wahlberg on location, standing beside a silver Perodua Kelisa, surrounded by production vehicles and crew, went viral over the weekend, sending Malaysian netizens into a collective frenzy.
The Big Fix is an upcoming American crime thriller film directed by Baltasar Baltasarsson with a screenplay by from a screenplay by Guy Bolton and Academy Award nominee Justin Haythe is inspired by a true story and adapted from Brett Forrest’s ESPN Magazine article “All the World Is Staged”. The premise of the film centres Chris Eaton, former Interpol officer working inside the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), who uncovers a global match-fixing operation.
What begins as an investigation quickly escalates into a high-stakes pursuit, as he closes in on a well-connected fixer aligned with Chinese Triads.
Wahlberg portrays a character inspired by Chris Eaton, the real-life former police officer who served as FIFA’s top enforcement agent and whose dogged efforts to dismantle the match-fixing network were repeatedly stymied by the sport’s governing bureaucracy.
Ahmed takes on the role drawn from Raj Perumal, widely considered the most prolific match-fixer in the history of football. Perumal, who is currently incarcerated, orchestrated a network that spanned multiple continents and operated in collusion with Chinese Triad syndicates, engineering the outcomes of matches across the world for tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains.
Joining the cast are Zlatko Burić, Gabriel Leone, Susan Lynch, Natalie Dormer, Vipin Sharma, Bobo Le, Paul G. Raymond, Nuha Jes Izman and known Singaporean actor Chin Han will be playing Dan Tan, the “boss” of the “world’s largest and most aggressive match-fixing syndicate”
It is unknown as to when the film will officially be released, but we can hope that the cast have enjoyed their time here.
