Where On Earth Is Narnia?

If you want to know where The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is being filmed, don’t read the papers. On 9 December the British newspaper The Times published a story saying that the sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was to be made at Pinewood Studios in Britain. According to The Times, the announcement was made by Andy Bird, President of Walt Disney International, at the Royal Television Society Dinner. Bird apparently said that shooting would begin in February and post-production would also be done in Britain.

"I don’t think we’ve announced this yet," he is quoted as saying.

Within days, though, The Times story was cast into doubt when Variety reported that Prince Caspian would shoot for six months at the Barrandov Studios in Prague. These facilities had previously been used for the new James Bond film, Casino Royale. When the story was picked up by Sci Fi Wire, it was presented as possibly contradicting the report in The Times. According to an article on the New Zealand website Stuff, the Czech Republic was one of the locations originally under consideration for the film.

The reports in Variety and The Times led to speculation that Disney had axed plans to make Prince Caspian in New Zealand, where the first Narnia film had largely been shot. Another report on Stuff, however, suggested that this was not the case. According to that story, Tim Coddington, unit production manager on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, told Radio New Zealand that reports of Disney making such a decision were wrong. The article also cited Film New Zealand chief executive Judith McCann as saying that it was always known that the production would not be entirely based in New Zealand.

The article on Stuff also referred to earlier reports on the official website for the Narnia films. These apparently said that filming would take place in New Zealand in February and March of 2007 and post production would happen in Prague. At the time of writing, Disney’s website for the series was saying that the film would "likely shoot in the forests of Europe" in January 2007.

Another website, KongIsKing.net, added to the speculation when it published comments from a "mysterious" contributor who called themselves N. This person had written to the site with a claim that was consistent with Coddington’s.

"I have spoken to a friend of mine working on pre-production for Prince Caspian, and she has dismissed this story as 'untrue' (to put it politely)," the contributor said. "Work is carrying on as normal."

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is scheduled for release on May 16, 2008.