The Real Places Behind ‘I Will Find You’ and How Canada Became Boston and New York

Netflix has a new thriller landing on its platform today, and it is already generating serious buzz among fans of tightly wound mysteries. ‘I Will Find You’ is an eight-episode miniseries adapted from Harlan Coben’s 2023 novel of the same name, starring Sam Worthington as David Burroughs, a father serving a life sentence for the alleged murder of his own son. The show drops at the perfect moment for summer streaming binges, and naturally, curious viewers want to know where those gripping, cinematic landscapes were actually captured.

The new Netflix thriller marks a notable first for the long-running Coben-Netflix partnership. It is the first time one of his Netflix productions has been set in North America, with the story taking place in Boston, Massachusetts before shifting to New York City. What makes that especially interesting is just how far from the United States the cameras actually traveled.

Ontario, Canada Did Most of the Heavy Lifting

Principal photography for the thriller miniseries got underway in April 2025 under the working title ‘Quartz’ and went on for about four months before wrapping up in August of the same year. For a show set in American cities, the production leaned overwhelmingly on Canadian soil to build its world.

Production on ‘I Will Find You’ was conducted primarily in Ontario, especially in the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton, Brantford, and Kingston. Toronto’s ability to convincingly double for American metropolitan environments has made it one of the busiest production hubs in North America, and this series took full advantage of that flexibility.

The first important filming location, perhaps the most recognizable, is the University of Toronto Mississauga campus in Mississauga, Ontario, where numerous pivotal scenes were filmed on the university campus, including hallways, libraries, classrooms, and outdoor spaces. The sprawling academic setting added visual texture and authenticity to scenes that needed an institutional, lived-in quality.

Toronto’s renowned Gothic revival castle, Casa Loma, served as another important filming location, with the landmark’s grand staircases and sprawling grounds lending the Netflix series a genuine sense of scale. Alongside that, Edward Gardens, located in North York, Toronto, served as a contrast to the plot’s dark underpinnings, projecting David’s desperation onto his immediate surroundings.

Kingston Penitentiary Brought the Prison Scenes to Life

No element of the production required more careful location scouting than the prison sequences, which form the emotional and narrative spine of the entire series. The creative team found exactly what they needed in one of Canada’s most storied and recognizable landmarks.

The prison scenes involving Sam Worthington’s David Burroughs were shot in and around Kingston Penitentiary, situated at 560 King Street West in Kingston, Ontario. The choice was inspired. This is not a generic stand-in but a deeply atmospheric space with genuine historical weight behind its walls.

The former maximum-security prison has been a National Historic Site of Canada since 1990 and serves as a museum today, allowing people to visit the historic prison. Its stone corridors and imposing architecture gave the series a visual severity that no purpose-built set could easily replicate.

The production crew also needed a typical rural North American backdrop, which they eventually found in the small village of Millbrook, Ontario, while open roads and farmland throughout Southern Ontario helped establish the isolation of Burroughs while amplifying his desperation. Additional Ontario filming also covered the scenic neighborhoods of Muskoka and the Algonquin Provincial Park.

Hamilton Stood In for Boston

One of the more creatively ambitious moves the production made was turning the industrial city of Hamilton into the American city of Boston, where the story begins and where David’s life unravels.

In August 2025, the cast and crew members were spotted recording several indoor and outdoor scenes at a house on Delaware Avenue and Burris Street in central Hamilton, which doubled as Boston. To add authenticity, they also had a Boston car parked near the home. It is a small but telling detail that speaks to the production’s commitment to convincing geography.

Over the years, Hamilton has quietly become one of North America’s busiest filming destinations, and it is no wonder that ‘I Will Find You’ chose to film many exterior scenes there. The city’s architecture provides a versatile palette that directors and location managers keep returning to.

Additional portions were filmed at The Sherwood Restaurant and Catering at 799 Colborne Street in the city of Brantford. These kinds of practical, real-world locations give a thriller series its grounded, believable texture, something that audiences increasingly notice and appreciate.

New York City Added Authenticity to the Chase

While Canada carried the bulk of the production schedule, the team recognized that a series set partly in New York City needed genuine New York footage to satisfy sharp-eyed viewers.

Cast and crew of the thriller did film some scenes in the United States, including Washington Square Park, Central Park, and Times Square in New York, with aerial shots also showing New York at night, including the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. These iconic backdrops lend the later episodes a kinetic energy that would be difficult to manufacture elsewhere.

In the latter half of August 2025, the team visited Midtown Manhattan, specifically the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street, to lens a few shots at Times Square, a spectacular tourist destination that has hosted the production of numerous movies and television shows. The familiar visual shorthand of Times Square tells viewers instantly where David’s desperate search has taken him.

During the production period, ‘I Will Find You’ was also scheduled to film at St. James Park and the King Edward Hotel in Toronto, confirming just how deeply the Canadian city was woven into the fabric of the finished series.

A Harlan Coben First That Changes the Formula

The location strategy of ‘I Will Find You’ is inseparable from what makes it a landmark entry in the Coben-Netflix catalogue. The series is not just another sharp European thriller wearing Coben’s name.

It is the first US adaptation of Coben’s work, which is a bit of a surprise, considering the author’s renewed output deal with Netflix that has previously delivered UK and European productions. Showrunner Robert Hull has brought the story back to its American roots, and the location work reflects that ambition at every level.

It has been confirmed that ‘I Will Find You’ will not be Coben’s last show with the streaming platform, with Michelle Keegan set to appear in another Coben adaptation titled ‘The Woods’ in future. The franchise shows no signs of slowing down, but this particular entry feels like a turning point in how the partnership approaches setting and scale.

If you have watched ‘I Will Find You’ today, we want to know whether you managed to spot the moment Ontario stopped being Ontario and started feeling convincingly like a city it was never meant to be.