Naman Shrestha
The Reginald Hudlin directorial, Amazon Prime’s ‘Candy Cane Lane,’ is a Christmas fantasy comedy movie that centers upon an annual Christmas contest that makes residents of a local neighborhood compete against one another to have the best-decorated home for Christmas. One of the residents, Chris Carver, is looking forward to winning, and in his desperation, he decides to turn to a stranger named Pepper and use some form of magic to make his property the best and most festive out of the lot. Sooner rather than later, he realizes that he has made a grave mistake when he learns about Pepper’s truth.
In actuality, Pepper is an evil elf who is known to transform her clients into plastic dolls. Now, Chris is in a race against time and must back out of the deal before she does the same to his friends, neighbors, and family. With some fantastical and magical visual elements against the setting of Christmas in a celebratory street in LA, the viewers wonder if there is an actual place that holds such a competition in real life and where it was filmed.
Candy Cane Lane Filming Locations
‘Candy Cane Lane’ was filmed in its entirety in California, particularly in Los Angeles County. According to reports, principal photography for the Eddie Murphy starrer got underway in December 2022 and wrapped up after a couple of months, in February 2023. So, let’s traverse through the magical Candy Cane Lane and find out all about the specific sites that served as production locations for the Amazon Prime film!
Los Angeles County, California
The shooting for all the pivotal sequences of ‘Candy Cane Lane’ took place in Los Angeles County, which is centered around the city of Los Angeles in Southern California. From the looks of it, the filming unit seemingly turned the real-life street — 1200 East Acacia Avenue in the city of El Segundo — into a film set for the production of the Christmas movie. Several decorated and lit-up residential properties on the street feature in different shots.
Moreover, the facilities of Amazon Studios in Culver City were utilized by the production team of ‘Candy Cane Lane’ as they specifically make the most of the new Stage 15, a 34,000-square-foot virtual production stage. After the transformation, the stage consists of a wall of more than 3,000 LED panels and motion capture cameras, making it convenient for filmmakers to re-create the outside world indoors. Not only that, the revamped stage’s advanced features also allow actors to interact with the environment instead of having to pretend in front of the green screen.
During a conversation with Vibe in November 2023, Kelly Younger, the writer of ‘Candy Cane Lane,’ talked about his experience of the entire production process. He explained, “Some of my favorite moments were being by our director’s side, Reggie Hudlin, who’s a legendary director. He really wanted me on set with him for every day of the shoot, talking through scenes, working through lines, pitching new things. That to me was a life-changing experience. I’m internally grateful for him and we have a very good friendship.”
In the same interview, Reginald Hudlin also described his experience shooting the film. He said, “God, it was just fun every day. Our Christmas kept going to the end of January, and we were just having fun every day in the beauty of Christmas, the music of Christmas, and the best funniest cast in the world.” Besides ‘Candy Cane Lane,’ LA County has served as a prominent filming site for ‘The Hot Chick,’ ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife,’ ‘Joan of Arcadia,’ ‘The Santa Clauses,’ and many more movies and TV shows.
Read More: Best Christmas Movies on Netflix
