Summer is here and that means road trips. Turn off the TV, plug
in coordinates to the GPS and visit real movie locations. You don’t have to
settle for California. Many movies were shot in areas nowhere near La La Land
and open to the public. We all know about the beauty of New Zealand thanks to
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit movies. If you have the bucks you
can actually can pop into Hobbiton and many of the places where the movies were
filmed. On a tighter budget? There are plenty closer to stateside to choose from
and they’re not exactly what or where you’d expect.
Ghostbusters Headquarters
The building is actually Hook & Ladder Company #8, a
fully working and operational New York Fire Department firehouse at 14 North
Moore Street in TriBeCa. Exteriors were shot in New York City and interiors in
Los Angeles, Fire Station #23, 225 E. 5th Street. It was decommissioned in 1960
and is now a Historic Cultural Monument for Los Angeles.
Robocop
This one might blow your mind. Although the movie supposedly
takes place in future Detroit, the downtown area is actually a mash-up of Pittsburgh
and Dallas. OCP corporate headquarters is Dallas City Hall at 1500 Marilla St.
Matte paintings made the building appear taller (and more ominous). Check out more before and afters posted by the Dallas
Film Commission.
Star Wars: A New Hope
The Massassi Outpost rebel base on the fourth moon of Yavin
in the original Star Wars film was shot on location at the Mayan temple ruins
in The Tikal National Park in Guatemala. Director George Lucas picked the
location after spotting a poster at a travel agency while shooting in London,
England. A trip to Tatooine starts a little farther. The Mos Eisley Spaceport
was really Ajim, Djerba Island, Tunisia, while Tosche Station was Sidi
Jemour, Djerba. They already sound like science fiction locations.
Don’t want to travel halfway across the world? The Tatooine desert was Death Valley National Park.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Poor Katniss had it tough in The Hunger Games. Yeah, sure,
real tough when she spent her days basking in luxury at the Marriott Marquis
Hotel at 265 Peachtree Center Avenue NE in Atlanta, Georgia. The building
served as the Tributes’ Quarters and Training Center. Production designers
chose the Marriot for the glass elevators and central atrium, at one time the
largest in the world. The Tributes’ living quarters were filmed on the 10th
floor and another set built on the hotel roof.
The Shining
Heeeere’s Johnny. Actually, here’s a conglomeration of
hotels that inspired The Overlook. The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National
Park, California, inspired the interior while exterior and establishing shots came
from the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon. Stephen King’s original
inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in the novel was the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Kubrick never shot there, but it was used in the 1997 made-for-TV
version of The Shining.
X Men
The exterior for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is
Hatley Castle, in British Columbia, although Casa Loma in Toronto and ParkwoodEstate in Oshawa, Ontario were also used. Interiors were sound stages. Hatley
Castle is a National Historic Site and tours are available.
Logan’s Run
A dystopian future never had so much great stuff to buy and
check out the nummy hot pretzels at the food court. Although areas around
Dallas/Fort Worth were filmed, the domed dystopian future city was actually a
shopping mall named the Dallas Market Center.
Logan’s Run is one of my favorite
cheesy bad movies. It’s quite awful from beginning to end and I’d always hoped
to visit and check out the sales while I wandered around recreating the escape of Logan 5 and Jessica 6. Unfortunately, urban
development necessitates progress and the The Dallas Market Center now looks
like a fitting end for the set of a dystopian
city.
The real Field of Dreams is a real family farm. Located in
Dyersville, Iowa, the Lansing Farm has free admission and live, guided 30-minute
tours. Hear stories about the Lansing family who homesteaded in the early 20th
century, and the farm’s rebirth as the set for the Kinsella family in the 1989
fantasy classic. The baseball field is still there and used for games. Want to stay
overnight and talk your dead daddy into a catch? The house is available for rent
on Booking.com.
Groundhog Day
On my top ten list of best fantasy movies ever is Groundhog
Day. While the story takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, it was almost
entirely filmed in Woodstock, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The quaint bed and
breakfast where Bill Murray’s Phil Connors stayed was the Royal Victorian Manor, at 344 Fremont Street. Alas, it is now closed. You’ll have to settle
for a selfie out front.
The Blob
It’s alive! Well, not exactly alive, but the Colonial Theater
in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania is open for business. If you’re a fan of classic
science fiction, you surely can’t pass up a visit to a place where the blob
nearly oozed through a building full of teenagers. July 12th this
year is the annual Blobfest where you can catch a show and then run screaming
from the theater.
L. A. Kelley writes fantasy and science fiction adventure with humor, romance, and a touch of sass. On road trips, she always puts her pedal to the metal.
4 comments:
What fun! My youngest had pneumonia when he was a child and watched Field of Dreams about a dozen times (I still know most of it by heart!). When his son was that age, they went to Iowa to visit the site which is actually a very nicely kept tourist attraction. To him, it was a dream come true.
Very interesting post. You must have spent hours researching! There are several I'd like to personally visit. Thanks for Thursday entertainment.
A fun post. I'm always disappointed to discover that the places in the movies aren't the real places. Love that Marriott in the Hunger Games.
Loved the post! So cool to see where these movies were filmed at or based on
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