Why Netflix's Floor Is Lava filmed in an empty Ikea building and why its lava formula is being kept under wraps

The Hollywood Reporter

The surprise hit Netflix reality competition took advantage of an empty Ikea in Burbank for filming. "The studios here, we called everybody," says co-creator Megan McGrath, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "We asked all of the main studios and nobody wanted 100,000 gallons of lava on their stuff, which is understandable. Even the places with giant pools that typically hold water, lava is heavier than water so they didn't want that in their pools either. So we ended up lucking out and we found this Ikea and it was huge. We had all of our different teams in there. There was a welding shop and the casting department and challenge producers had a giant office that they were working in. It ended up working out really well. The main stage is in, I guess the self-serve area of Ikea?" What is the lava made of? "We're keeping it under wraps! It's a proprietary blend. I can't tell you what it is," says McGrath, who adds that "the reason we're being so secretive about it is because it really did take a long time to nail this down. You want the lava to glow." Fellow co-creator Irad Eyal calls it "literally our secret sauce," adding: "We tasked Hollywood's biggest chemists and slime/goopy substance-makers to come up with our lava. We did a ton of research about what lava looks like and how it moves and how it glows and we tried to really create that in ours. We spent months testing different lavas and different formulas."