As the new screenplay changes the location from the original's quaint English countryside to Marin County, California, filmmaker [John] Carpenter returned to the resort communities of Inverness and Point Reyes, the same sites he employed for his 1980 horror film The Fog. In casting a location for the story's fictional town of Midwich, Carpenter noted, "It seems to me the story plays only in a small town, because it's an intimate place and the people know each other." The director, who owns a hilltop retreat in Inverness, which he bought after completing The Fog there 15 years earlier, added, "In many ways, it resembles the setup in The Fog, the same location. What better place to shoot than my own backyard?"