The sets were built in 2008 at the Falstone camping reserve next to Lake Benmore's Haldon Arm and Elephant Rocks near Duntroon for a film planned by South Vineyard Ltd on the life of Christ.
However, the company has run into financial difficulties and never started filming as planned in early 2009.
Both sets were built under resource consents issued by the council and Environment Canterbury (for the Lake Benmore set) in 2008 and originally were supposed to be removed in November 2009.
The company successfully applied in February last year for a one-year extension on the consents, which expired in November last year.
Under the extension, if filming had not started by then, the film sets were to be removed.
Planning consents manager David Campbell said yesterday the council had written to the company's lawyers for an update on the project, asking if any filming had been done and what it intended to do with the two film sets.
The options facing the company were either to remove the sets or apply again to extend the resource consents for both Falstone and Elephant Rocks.
A bond had been paid by the company under the consents to help pay removal costs in the event the council had to remove the sets and restore both sites, Mr Campbell said.
The Falstone set is the larger of the two, planned to consist of more than 100 facades to recreate a Sea of Galilee fishing village and boat harbour.
South Vineyard has faced High Court action over debts from the project, with 285 creditors owed about $5.8 million.
In November, a compromise was agreed to with the money owed by the company paid by November 30 this year.
If not, creditors were granted the right to bring back proceedings to wind up the company.
South Vineyard lawyer Stephen Brown said the Falstone set would stay until the movie was completed.
The abandoned Wellington set for Kingdom Come has been dismantled and removed by the Defence Force at a cost to taxpayers of $70,000, NZPA reported.
The set, which was built in 2008 on Wellington's Miramar Peninsula, was rotting and covered in graffiti by the time it was pulled down, The Dominion Post reported.
Mr Brown said the film company had handed the site back to the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), which was removing the structures.
However, he said the company was still looking for funding for the film.
"The company has deliberately decided to abandon that set.
"It was much too lavish for what was required and we can do the same thing on an indoor set," Mr Brown said.
