Movie/TV locations you want to visit?

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Starting a new thread, because of a nice discovery... Tony Gilroy's Andor series was filmed largely on location.

 

The Galactic Senate ext. scenes (and Lonni's unfortunate conversation) were in Valencia's City Of Arts & Sciences, while the Mothma estate was just up the road in Xativa. So that's another place in Spain I need to go visit...

https://www.filmvalencia.com/new/dentro_del_rodaje_en_valencia_y_xativa_de_la_serie_de_star_wars_andor

 

Also:

• Aldhani -> Cruachan Dam, Scotland
• Coruscant Starport - McLaren F1 HQ (appointment only)
• Coruscant Flats / Hideout - The Barbican, London
• Saw's hideout is a disused British quarry (ah, keeping up Dr Who traditions)
• ...and the dreamy resort planet of Niamos is in fact Cleveleys, near Blackpool. Which, to a Brit, is pretty hilarious.

 

So what locations have you always wanted to visit - or do you have any near you?

 

There are several movies that have been filmed in my home town - Stardust and Jingle Jangle both took over Elm Hill and several of my friends were in both. But the real surprise was Avengers: Age Of Ultron. We knew they'd been up to something, but not that it was The Avengers Mansion, and the whole place erupted in cheers and laughter.

https://www.visitnorwich.co.uk/article/visit-norwich-and-norfolks-filming-locations/

 

And I do know that RDJ stopped while filming to chat with a five-year-old who happened to be wearing an Iron Man outfit that day, and was quite happily convinced that he was Tony Stark and RDJ was another Tony. Because having another you drop out of the sky in a Stark Industries helicopter is the kind of thing that happens every day when you're five. Just on the inside of your head.

[Techwright]

Near me (up to 49 miles):

 

Downtown Greer, South Carolina -  used for Leatherheads, the George Clooney, Renée Zellweger movie regarding the early days of American football.

 

Gaffney, SC - formerly home to a never-activated nuclear power plant (now removed).  The stacks from this power plant were sculpted inside, filled with an insane amount of water, covered with kids' ball pit balls to darken the water, and turned into the undersea scape of the movie The Abyss. (Ironically about 250 miles from the coast.)  The infamous trench fall from the movie was created by repeatedly dropping the actor from top to bottom of the stack.

 

Lake Jocassee, South Carolina -  bordered by Devil's Fork State Park, Lake Jocassee is one of my favorite spots on Earth.  deep blue, very cold waters, lots of hiking trails and camping...and location to some of the shooting for the legendary Deliverance.   No, I've never heard banjo playing, but the gift shop used to sell bumper stickers about it.  The river was, in part, the Chattooga River, famous for its white water rafting and fishing, which forms the western-most border of South Carolina against Georgia and North Carolina.  As a teen Scout, I used to camp next to it in the Ellicott Rock Wilderness, a primitive camping area.  Ellicott Rock being a boulder in the river, the geological point where Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina all meet.  (Yes, I've stood on it.) 

 

T. L. Hanna High School, Anderson, SC - site of the real life events of the movie Radio, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Ed Harris.  The high school also has another famous student:  the late Chadwick Boseman, best known as The Black Panther.  While the town of Walterboro, SC, closer to the center of the state was used for much of the movie, the hometown of the high school, Anderson, SC was incorporated into some of the movie.  I've worked in Anderson on IT contracts before, and drive by T.L. Hanna at least a few times each year still.

 

Brattonsville, SC - (about 85-90 miles) not a current town, but a living museum composed of houses and plantations of the past, Brattonsville was the site of the real life Battle of Huck's Defeat, a small, quickly-over, but important battle in the southern states' fight during the American Revolutionary War.    Some of the properties were chosen to be used in Mel Gibson & Heath Ledger's The Patriot, a completely fictional work woven from bits and pieces of the real life patriots of the vicious guerrilla-style fighting in South Carolina during the Revolution.  I've been to Brattonsville and toured the spots used in the movie.  

 

The next several locations were all in areas badly damaged by Hurricane Helene last September.  I've been up that way once since then, and some large sections are still closed to all traffic.

 

Dillsboro, North Carolina and Cheoah Dam - this is a bit more regional: 100 miles away traveling mountain roads, or about 60 miles as the crow flies.  These are the sites of two of the biggest moments in the Harrison Ford/Tom Lee Jones blockbuster The Fugitive.   A portion of the Great Smoky Mountains Railway near Dillsboro was utilized to film the movie's terrifying train/bus crash and Cheoah Dam was, of course, the site of the legendary first clash of the two main characters.

 

Biltmore Mansion, Asheville, North Carolina.  Another regional one, roughly an hour's drive from me.  I've been there many, many times thanks to a few yearly passes I once held.  I'm actually not sure how many films have been made at the mansion and its surrounding estate, but here's a list of 13 of them.  My personal favorite is The Private Eyes with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

 

Lake Lure, North Carolina- (about 50 miles north, but maybe more these days, depending on route due to wiped out roads) filming location for the iconic 1980s film Dirty Dancing.  Unfortunately, Lake Lure has had it rough this last decade, first with forest fires ravaging its shores in the autumn of 2016, then with the absolutely devastating impact of Hurricane Helene, which pushed tons of rubble and debris through swollen rivers and into the lake.  It may be decades before Lake Lure might be considered "normal" again.  As if that were not enough, the buildings used in the movie burned several years back.  The photo highlighting the link I included shows what it was before the area was decimated.

 

Dupont State Recreational Forest, Lake James State Park, Chimney Rock Park, Nolichucky River in Pisgah National Forest...pretty much shoot a cannon ball in any direction out of Asheville, NC and you'll be pointed towards some filming spot for The Last of the Mohicans, with Daniel Day Lewis.    Many of these locations were brutally scarred, even wiped from the map by Hurricane Helene last September.  Chimney Rock Park for example, had the whole road and town below it taken all the way back to nature.  Hardly a board or asphalt piece remained, though the park remains.  They're in the process of building a new road, and in time, a new town.  The Nolichucky River, likewise flooded and carved a new landscape.  Incidentally, the Nolichucky's edge was the birthplace of American legend Davy Crockett.  (He was not "born on the mountaintop" as the song goes.) I had a chance to visit the birthplace site back in July 2019.  Not sure if anything of it remains now, but a state park had grown up around it.   Also a side note: at the time of filming, I was working with the Humane Societies of western South Carolina as a courier.  The regional head, as one of her duties, had to observe Hollywood films in the region to make certain the animals on set were being humanly treated.  She took a firestorm of flack for The Last of the Mohicans.  One rube royally berated her for the scene in which the hero and his adopted Mohican family hunted and killed an elk.  After this yahoo finally lost some steam, she very pointedly noted that no elk was on set.   It was a robot designed to look like an elk.    She noted some other films she had observed on behalf of the Humane Society, like Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken.  That, apparently was filmed down at Myrtle Beach, SC about 250 miles away.

**I'm now told that some of The Hunger Games was filmed in Dupon State Recreational Forest.

 

Cold Mountain, North Carolina -  I read part of the book upon which the movie Cold Mountain with Jude Law, Renee Zellweger, and Nicole Kidman, was based, and learned it was a real mountain about 45 miles north of me, though a lot longer due to the mountain roads needed to reach it.  So in early spring of 2003, I drove up to it.  The route I took, State 276, I would NOT recommend to anyone with a fear of heights.  Narrow lanes, dense fog, long drop-offs.  I admit I was terrified someone would come around a hairpin turn so far from civilization and hit me over the side of the mountains.  That said, the area around the mountain itself is flat and beautiful.  Just approach it from a different direction.

 

I suppose if there was a filming location I'd want to visit, perhaps the studios in Atlanta, about 150 miles south, where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is largely created.

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 05:03 AM by Techwright
added content

[Marine X]

Mansfield, Ohio.

The Historic Ohio State Reformatory featured in The Shawshank Redemption, Air Force One and several Music Videos. Also is home to the Inkcarceration Music and Tatoo Festival.

 

Home - The Ohio State Reformatory Preservation Society

 

Lineup - Inkcarceration | July 18 - 20, 2025 | Mansfield, OH

[AboveTheChemist]

7 hours ago, Techwright said:

Near me (up to 49 miles):

 

We must not live terribly far from one another. I've been to the Fugitive train crash site and have parked near the base of Cheoah Dam a couple of times to go hiking into Joyce Kilmer. Incidentally my local theater is showing The Fugitive in a month or so. While I haven't knowingly visited any sites from Last of the Mohicans, I saw it a few weeks ago at that same theater. I've hiked to the top of Cold Mountain (somewhere in my archives I have a photo of the geodetic monument on top), but never seen the film.

 

I visited a few of the filming locations for Ronin in France. In particular, a friend and I searched around Montmatre for the long set of steps from the beginning/end of the film. On a separate trip my wife and I drove up to La Turbie where the main ambush started, we stayed in Nice where the ambush ended, and we visited Arles where the shootout in the old Colosseum took place.

 

I live where Bull Durham was filmed so I see those filming locations often. I've been to a couple of throwback Durham Bulls games at their old ballpark (called the DAP) where many scenes were filmed, and Mitch's Tavern over in Raleigh is across the street from my alma mater (NC State) and I've had a beer or three, and quite a few lunches, there. My wife visited Annie's house on a home tour a few weeks ago, and apparently Annie's clawfoot tub is still there.

 

Parts of Days of Thunder were filmed at North Wilkesboro speedway near where I grew up. They also filmed part of an episode of Top Gear (with May/Hammond/Clarkson) there.

 

I've been to Wuppertal, Germany where The Princess and the Warrior was filmed. The same friend that searched for the Ronin steps was with me there, and we rode the suspension monorail (Schwebebahn) that features several times in the film.

 

I am probably forgetting a few but I'll edit them in if they come to mind.

[lemming]

Where I grew up, they were filming the second Dirty Harry Film and the community meeting house was used as one of the locations.  I had a paper route and would sell my extra papers to the crew.

In Santa Cruz, the comic book shop from The Lost Boys was the one I got my comics from.

In Kanab Utah, the "Head em off at the pass" featured in many old westerns was on my commute.  Along with the buildings from a Disney film I forget the name of.

Right now in Portland, some Netflix show keeps taking up all the parking near my vet. 😄

 

I've also found out, I'm terrible at recognizing actors.   I've had conversations with Michael Dorn, Linda Hunt, Lisa Edelstein, and a few others without knowing who they were.

[Techwright]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

I've also found out, I'm terrible at recognizing actors.   I've had conversations with Michael Dorn, Linda Hunt, Lisa Edelstein, and a few others without knowing who they were.

 

To be fair, they probably had trouble recognizing you from any other lemming.

[Krimson]

They filmed some of The Last of Us near my house, so I got that covered. I've never watched it. 😄