The Prisoner (2009 Miniseries) - Production

Production

The Prisoner went into production in June 2008. Location filming for The Village was in Swakopmund, Namibia. A production diary is available.

After 18 weeks of shooting, principal photography wrapped on December 12, 2008. AMC streamed all 17 episodes of the original Prisoner series in advance of showing the remake.

According to Patrick McGoohan's widow, producers of the new series had hoped that McGoohan would play a part in bringing the revival to the air. "They wanted Patrick to have some part in it, but he adamantly didn't want to be involved. He had already done it," she said in an interview shortly after McGoohan's death. This however was contradicted by Ian McKellen in an interview featured in the November 2009 edition of SFX Magazine where he was quoted as saying:

"He was asked to be in the first episode, there being a part that would have been very ironically fitting, but apparently he said that he didn't want to do it unless he was offered the part of Number Two."

The miniseries was promoted at 2008 San Diego ComicCon via a skywriter airplane that sketched the phrase "Seek the Six" on the sky over San Diego. Although "Seek the Six" was initially thought to be a catchphrase of some sort, there was no reference to it in the final program .

A further promotional event for the miniseries was held at the 2009 ComicCon, including a spoiler-heavy, 9-minute trailer and a cast and crew discussion panel, during which producer Trevor Hopkins confirmed that he had invited McGoohan to play the role of the Number Six-like old man encountered by Caviezel's character early in the first episode. This is suggested by the jacket worn by the old man – the same style jacket as worn by number Six in the first series. McGoohan declined, but suggested he could play Number 2 instead.