How Netflix’s East of Eden Recreated Steinbeck’s California in New Zealand

Netflix’s adaptation of ‘East of Eden’ is arriving with a production story nearly as layered as the novel it is based on, since the series built its version of California onscreen almost seven thousand miles away. The limited series stars Florence Pugh alongside Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, and Hoon Lee, with later additions including Joseph Zada, Tracy Letts, Martha Plimpton, Joe Anders, and Ciarán Hinds.

Zoe Kazan wrote and executive produced the seven episode series, with Jeb Stuart serving as co-showrunner, and Garth Davis directing the first four episodes while Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre took on the final three. The choice to shoot John Steinbeck’s Salinas Valley epic outside the United States has become one of the more talked about aspects of the production, and the reasons behind it reveal a lot about how modern streaming series are actually made.

The New Zealand Locations Behind East of Eden

Filming began in New Zealand in October 2024 and wrapped in March 2025, with production centered on Auckland, Dunedin, and Oamaru on the South Island. Production spent several months moving between these locations before the show entered a lengthy post production process. The South Island cities of Dunedin and Oamaru in particular became central to recreating the world of the novel.

Phil Turner, the locations manager who worked on the production, said the region offered a kind of authenticity that would be difficult to find elsewhere, noting that the area could replicate period settings in a way that would otherwise require building a set from scratch. That sentiment, shared with the New Zealand Herald, points to the practical reality behind the decision, since certain turn of the century architecture simply no longer exists in California in the same form. The country’s screen production rebates, which can return up to twenty percent of qualifying costs to international studios, have also made it an attractive base for large scale period productions like this one.

Filming wrapped in New Zealand before former President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs on films produced outside the United States became a wider industry talking point. The timing meant the production avoided becoming a direct flashpoint in that debate, even as its existence became part of the broader conversation about where big budget American stories are actually filmed.

Dunedin and Oamaru Become Salinas Valley

Dunedin, known locally as Ōtepoti, combines heritage architecture with coastal landscape and lush terrain nearby, which made it a workable stand in for the early twentieth century Salinas Valley setting of the novel. The series remains set in the Salinas Valley in California according to the story itself, even though New Zealand supplied the physical backdrop. That contrast between story and setting is part of what has made the production’s geography such a point of discussion among readers of the book.

Ōamaru’s Victorian Precinct was transformed into early twentieth century California for the shoot, using the town’s preserved historic architecture as a direct stand in for the period. The precinct’s stone buildings, largely untouched since the Victorian era, gave the production a built environment that matched the novel’s timeframe without requiring extensive set construction. Central Otago and the Maniototo region rounded out the South Island locations used across the shoot.

For a story this closely tied to a specific piece of American geography, recreating it convincingly required more than just similar looking hills. Local outlets have noted that the combination of period buildings and open landscape gave the production range it likely could not have found as easily on a single soundstage.

The Auckland Shoot in Devonport

Beyond the South Island work, the production also spent four days filming in Auckland, specifically in the Devonport suburb of Cheltenham, in late February. That leg of the shoot followed the earlier filming in Oamaru and Central Otago, and involved up to two hundred cast and crew members working in the neighborhood.

Local streets were reportedly transformed to resemble California’s Salinas Valley in the early twentieth century, which included painting selected houses in era appropriate colors ahead of filming, among them a villa on Cheltenham Road built in 1906. The homeowner told a local publication that the location team and production company had been great to work with throughout the process.

Residents in the area were reportedly impressed by how the shoot was organized, describing minimal disruption and consistent communication from the location managers and security staff on site. As a gesture of thanks, the production hosted a wrap event for residents at a local beach once filming concluded. That kind of local goodwill is not always guaranteed when a major studio shoot moves through a residential neighborhood, which made this particular stop notable.

Fans React to the Location Choice

Not every reaction to the production’s setting has been positive. Some readers of the novel have expressed frustration that a story so deeply tied to California’s Salinas Valley and identity was filmed elsewhere entirely, with some suggesting it does not feel like the same story once removed from that specific landscape. That reaction reflects how closely ‘East of Eden’ the book is associated with its setting, since Steinbeck wrote extensively about the valley itself as almost a character in the narrative.

At the same time, plenty of coverage has focused less on the controversy and more on anticipation for the finished series. The story returns to screens more than seventy years after the novel’s original release, and with Pugh in the lead role as Cathy, some outlets have described it as one of the more ambitious literary adaptations in recent memory. Pugh takes on a role previously associated with Jane Seymour’s performance in the 1981 television adaptation, adding another layer of comparison for longtime fans of the story.

Whether the New Zealand locations ultimately read as authentic Salinas Valley or as a noticeably different backdrop will likely come down to individual viewers once the series is widely seen. Given how much of the conversation around ‘East of Eden’ has already centered on where it was filmed rather than just how it was adapted, it says something about how invested people remain in Steinbeck’s version of California nearly seventy five years after the book’s release. Readers who know the novel well may want to weigh in on whether New Zealand’s stand in landscape does justice to the valley Steinbeck spent so much of the book describing.