Unlike the original show - which used a real-life town in Wales as The Village, the secret town populated by spies and n'erdowells that tried to break Patrick McGoohan's Number Six - the new version of the show is being filmed in Africa's Swakopmund: a former German settlement than requires a lot of set construction:

[The Prisoner Production Blog]

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I think everyone on the cast and crew seems most excited about the modern-day twist. Producer Trevor Hopkins explains that Bill Gallagher's script doesn't try to copy the original show, which is probably a good thing. Instead the new version is more about post 9/11 security issues.

It's the first time our post-9/11 anxieties have been merged with a tripped-out 1960s style, so it'll be interesting to see how it meshes. I'm excited to see how they'll pump the inhabitants of the Village for information, Prisoner-style, yet remain true to modern times.

But even more intriguing is the pairing of Jim Caviezel as Number 6 and Ian McKellen as the authority figure Number 2. Caviezel replaces Patrick McGoohan's defiance with an air of "Holy crap, I'm confused — what's going on? I'm not a number." And McKellen is just a first class actor all the way. Let the whacked-out battle of wits commence.

[AMC]

The new version of the series - co-produced by ITV in the UK, which gave us the original show - will be a six-hour miniseries that reboots the concept of Caviezel's nameless secret agent being kidnapped to the mysterious "Village," where people are known only by numbers and everyone is out to find out what secrets everyone else is hiding. Sir Ian McKellen has signed on to play main badguy Number Two for the entire run, replacing the revolving "Number Two of The Week" guest-slot of the original show.

The show is expected to premiere midway through next year.

Ian McKellen to lead in ITV's The Prisoner remake [The Guardian]

Six of One, the Prisoner fan page claims that Ian McKellen will play one of the men in charge of The Village, Number 2. Also shooting starts the first week of August in Namibia, South Africa. There will be total of 6 one-hour episodes written by Bill Gallagher (scribe for Conviction).

The original Prisoner followed a former spy known only as Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan) who's imprisoned inside the futuristic town-prison named The Village. Everyone who is taken to this remote location was brought there to keep their knowledge away from the public and to have their secrets discovered by the mysterious jailers. Number 6 can't escape and doesn't know why he's there, and he ends up spending a majority of his time trying to uncover who his captors are.

Yay, finally a new scifi remake that deserves some attention. It's a simple idea that can easily be translated and updated without butchering the plot or ideas of the original. Bring it on I say, especially with McKellen as the crafty Number 2. [Six Of One and Wired]