As CBn reported earlier, not only the city of Prague will be a film location for the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale, but also surrounding towns and villages. Today, while driving home from a friend in my car, a song I don’t like was played in the radio. So I changed the station and switched over to SWR1. There, some chat was going on, when I finally realized that they were talking about Casino Royale!

I am not sure how long the programme was already going on, but I caught some details on shooting in the village of Plana. Back in December, the "Mitteldeutsche Zeitung" was the first one to report that an abandoned hospital in Plana is going to be a film location. Talking to the building manager of that hospital, the radio reporter confirmed the shooting. It seems that the Bond crew, including Daniel Craig and some other of the cast members, are heading to Plana later this year, to shoot for at least two days. For these two days of shooting, 60 (!) vans are going to carry equipment to the village near the German border ("We have no idea yet where these vans could park…").

They also revealed that the 21st James Bond film is going to have a very similar opening to the last one, with Bond waking up in that hospital "after being tortured heavily". Interestingly, the hospital itself will be located in Croatia, which is close to Montenegro. So it seems that Casino Royale will mostly be set in the Balkan area in Southeast Europe. The radio report also featured a rough description of the hospital, which is said to have gigantic halls and big doorways. "The Bond producers especially liked that", the manager was quoted.

Until the 1980s, the hospital was used by the Soviets as a military hospital. The management will only be paid 1200 ? (~ 1450 US$) by the producers, but they hope that a new investor will put some money into the old hospital.

Loket Castle

In related news, Czech newspaper Novinky has posted an article about the Czech locations. Thanks to the folks over at BondMovies.com, who did a rough translation of the article, another location can be revealed: The castle of Loket. The old bulding is described as "a massive Gothic castle ruling over a town closed on a promontory over a river, surrounded by woods - it is a picture from a fairy tale. And if the fairy tale includes imprisoning people - and not only subjects - then the impression emanating from the castle Loket is quite perfect. Today, it serves to more fragile purposes - it houses a historical collection of china. However, the castle tour will take you to dungeons, to a visit to local ghosts and the necessary relaxing view from the tower." (webmapy.cz)

Casino Royale is the 21st James Bond film produced by franchise holders Eon Productions. The MGM/Columbia Pictures production began shooting in January and is due for release worldwide on 17 November 2006. Starring Daniel Craig as James Bond, it is currently being filmed in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy and the UK.

Discuss this news in this thread on the CBn Forums, the largest James Bond forum on the internet. Many thanks to forum user “Shrublands” for the tip!