Time Bandits

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND
PHOTOGRAPHED 2022-2023

The 2024 Time Bandits TV series was filmed in and around Wellington between August 2022 and February 2023.

During this time, sets were built at Stone Street Studios and Lane Street Studios, with a number of Greater Wellington locations doubling as landmarks from across time. These include:

the Remutaka Range (as the Great Wall of China surrounds)
a stately home in Featherston (as a Georgian mansion in England) – pics
Hillary Court pedestrian mall in Naenae (as Bingley, UK in 1996)
Queen Elizabeth Park in Paekākāriki, where a replica of Stonehenge was built in a field. The Lord of the Rings was also filmed here.

This page features the following locations:

Maginnity Street in Wellington Central (as Harlem, New York in 1929)
the Hue tē Taka Peninsula, where ‘Susan’s cottage’ was built
Camperdown Studios Park Road, which housed the props department.

Episode 4 – Prohibition saw Maginnity Street in Wellington Central transformed into 1920s Harlem in New York City, featuring the real-life Wellesley Club building (c.1927) both outside and in.

^{Filming inside the Wellesley Club ©Paramount Pictures}

For the car chase scenes, the road was sprayed with water to create a wet surface effect.

^{_{Co-creator Taika Waititi is present (centre frame; red trainers) as the road is artifically soaked}}

Despite a location shoot, most of the Harlem scenery was created virtually, as can be seen in the below comparison of the scene vs. real life:

©Apple Inc. / Google

Episode 9 – Pell-Mell saw Susan’s cottage, from the Time of Legends, built on Wellington’s Hue tē Taka Peninsula. This location at 69A Moa Point Road is often referred to as Moa Point, although this is actually just the name of the suburb and the peninsula’s southern tip.

The Time of Legends island (which turns out to be the head of Hen the Giant) contains only Susan’s cottage, inhabited by her and Gavin. The cottage is close to the coastline, which in real life is Wellington’s Tarakena Bay.

^{The cast stood outside the front of the cottage ©New Zealand Film Commission}

Unlike Harlem, little computer wizardry was used for this set and the surrounding scenery is real, as can be seen in the below comparison of the scene vs. real life:

Left photo ©Apple Inc. Note the curious climber being watched by security

An artificial rock line (seen along the bottom of the real-life photo above) was built for the actors to stand on and look over the ‘edge’ in the scene where the island lifts as the giant raises his head. The resulting cliff was, of course, CGI’d.

Gallery

Finally, the production’s props department was based out of Camperdown Studios Park Road, photographed below in 2023 prior to the site’s demolition. Time Bandits (codenamed Stonehenge) was the last known production to use these buildings.

Bonus content: The Map

HARDCORE SETS has exclusively obtained the Time Bandits Map (2024 edition), scanned below for your viewing pleasure. Click to open hi-res version.