Gresham Talks Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Douglas Gresham Cast PictureBack in May last year, NarniaWeb heard that Malta was one of the locations being touted for Prince Caspian location filming. Now it seems that producer Douglas Gresham has set his sights further for filming the third Narnia film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in the small island nation. Narniafans has a short transcript of the news from the Times of Malta newspaper:

Douglas Gresham is currently working on another Narnia Chronicle: Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia, which is well advanced in pre-production and due for release on May 18, 2008.

“External location work on Prince Caspian will start in mid February in New Zealand. We will then move the production to Prague, and various other places around Eastern Europe.” Mr Gresham said.

He has another film project in mind, another Narnia Chronicle: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – “which I’d like to film in Malta. The story takes places in a ship at sea, so it would be very suitable to film here,” he explained. “But all this depends on what kind of deal we can clinch with the government. When you’re dealing with the kind of budgets we deal with, one per cent is a lot of money. So, getting a good percentage rebate could make a huge difference. The film commission in Malta is offering some excellent incentives to come and film here, but it needs to be competitive not only in that area but also in facilities, people, skills and artisans. I’d love to film in Malta. For one reason, I’d be able to wake up and drive to work, as opposed to catching a plane and flying half way around the world. It depends entirely on the deal we can clinch at the time. We are not ready to start shooting yet, but we are not that far away. I would hope to be in pre-production on The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader before we release Prince Caspian.”

This is also the first time we’ve heard that the release date for Prince Caspian will be the 18th of May rather than the 16th.