Prince Caspian was scheduled to be shot in New Zealand, but has that changed? It looks like it may have, and all due to tax breaks that have been made available as an incentive to overseas film-makers. According to an article at the Times Online, Britain’s Pinewood Studio has been chosen over New Zealand.
Earlier this week, Douglas Gresham re-confirmed that filming was scheduled to happen in New Zealand and would then move to the Czech Republic. But perhaps, since this interview, things have changed. Only time will tell. Here’s part of the article:
Prince Caspian, the next film in the Narnia series, is set to be made at Britain’s Pinewood Studios. Andy Bird, the president of Walt Disney International, told an audience of television executives on Thursday that shooting would begin in February and that post-production would also take place in Britain.
The announcement is a coup for the British film industry and confirms the belief that Hollywood is being lured back to Britain on the back of the new tax incentives introduced by Gordon Brown.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was shot in New Zealand — which has established itself as a popular, low-cost filming location over the past few years.
Prince Caspian’s backers had considered New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland as alternative locations for the film, although the story is set initially in wartime Britain, before the four Pevensie children return to Narnia a thousand years after the events in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
Mr Bird, a Briton, said that the US media giant was determined to produce in Britain as part of its policy of localising its image by basing productions away from America.
However, it is understood that the tax breaks available to overseas film-makers played an important role in the decision.
Those familiar with the project said that the revised tax regime was an incentive for Disney and Philip Anschutz’s Walden Media, the film’s other backer, to come to Britain, helping to revive a sector that had been in crisis as a result of the uncertainty that surrounded the scrapping of the previous tax rules.
A formal announcement confirming the decision to film in the UK has yet to be made, but the studio has already formally committed to undertaking special effects in the UK, the scale of which is enough alone to ensure that the film is the first major film to qualify for the break.
Mr Bird prefaced his comments at Thursday’s Royal Television Society Dinner by saying: “I don’t think we’ve announced this yet.” Pinewood Shepperton, the company behind the Pinewood studio, declined to comment.
Prince Caspian is due to be released in May 2008, under the direction of Andrew Adamson, who directed the previous film. The producers will be confident of a hit after the strong worldwide box office performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last year.
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