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30 Facts About Famous Movie Locations

These sets are more interesting than the movies themselves...

30 Facts About Famous Movie Locations

November 17, 2023

One unsung hero of cinema is the location of the movie itself, which possess all kinds of interesting backstories. For example, The Abyss wasn’t filmed on the ocean floor. It was filmed inside of an unfinished nuclear reactor in South Carolina. Frankly, the ocean floor seems potentially safer? Meanwhile, Malcolm X was one of the first films ever to be shot inside of Mecca.

Scroll down for more wild movie-location facts!

30

X-MEN Hatley Castle in British Columbia, Canada doubles for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. It has also been used as a shooting location in Arrow and Smallville. CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

29

ADYSS THE The Abyss wasn't filmed on the ocean's bottom, but in an unfinished nuclear reactor near Gaffney, South Carolina, filled with 7.5 million gallons of water. CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

28

AVENGERS MARVEL'S CRACKED.COM When not used to experiment on the Tesseract, NASA's Space Power Facility, near Sandusky, Ohio, is the world's largest vacuum chamber. — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

27

Most of Trainspotting was shot in the abandoned Wills Tobacco factory in Glasgow. Because of its shoestring budget, cast and crew lived there through the 49 days of filming. Trainspotting CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

26

CRACKED. ac an The Lady Washington, a replica of an 18th- century brig, is the Interceptor in Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jolly Roger in Once Upon a Time, among others. — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

25

CRACKED.COM Malcolm X This was the first fiction film to get permission to shoot in Mecca. A special crew was assembled, as only Muslims are allowed into the city. — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

24

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND Devil's Tower in Wyoming was made America's first national monument by Theodore Roosevelt. Geologists disagree about its formation, but it's undeniably a cool spot to land your spaceship. CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

23

the TRUMAN show The Truman Show was filmed in Seaside, Florida. Yes, that idealized town of pastel homes is real, and you can visit it. CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

22

CRACKED.COM CLORKS Quick STOP GROCERIES I ASSURE YOU WERE OPEN! Clerks was shot in a grocery store where Kevin Smith was working at the time. The joke about the jammed locks was written in because they could only film at night. — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

21

GHOSTBUSTERS -B-HOOKI SLADBERG The Hook & Ladder Company No. 8 Firehouse in Tribeca, NYC was cut in half in 1914 to widen the adjacent street, giving the busters' headquarters its iconic look. CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

20

JOHN CARPENTER'S CRACKED.COM ESCAPE! FROM new YORK The final scenes were shot at Sepulveda Dam, built in the 1940s -in Los Angeles. — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

19

The climactic torture scene was shot in a decommissioned cooling tower at the Croydon Power Station in London. CRACKED.COM — Source: 26 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Hit Movie Locations

18

Malcolm X filmed in Mecca, which was unprecedented. Non-Muslims in the crew were forbidden from entering. A special secondary crew was assembled, while Spike Lee and his own crew had to wait outside. Originally, Warner Bros. suggested these scenes be filmed in New Jersey. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

17

The Fugitive's tunnels are Chicago's freight network. The city dug these underground passages at the start of the 20th century for a phone system that was never built. In 1992, a leak sprung. and the Chicago River dumped 250 million gallons of water into the tunnels Various basements flooded as a result, and the water rose into the streets. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

16

Harry Potter 7 filmed in a German town Rothenburg ob der Tauber retains the look of a fairy tale because many of its buildings date back to medieval times. In 1945, the Nazis agreed to surrender it to ensure the town wouldn't be attacked, because they valued its beauty that much. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

15

The Princess Bride's cliffs of insanity are Ireland's Cliffs of Moher. In 1588, watchmen here spotted Spanish ships approaching, and they assumed Spain had conquered England and would conquer Ireland next. They brutally killed 300 men aboard the ships. Only then did they realize the Spanish were retreating from England and had come to Ireland to request aid. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

14

Revenge of the Sith featured mountains near Guilin in China. In 1996, more than 50 years after World War II, farmers found a wrecked plane on one of the 7,000-foot mountains while searching for herbs. It took another decade for the U.S. military to retrieve and identify the body. Then the dead airman's family finally got to bury him. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

13

The Pirates of the Caribbean ship returned for the porn parody. Perhaps unable to get the stench of booty out, the owners then sold it in 2010. In 2012, it was caught in Hurricane Sandy. The captain ordered INBURGH his crew to abandon ship much too late, leading to one crewman's death and the captain's own disappearance. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

12

RFK was assassinated in the hotel from The Graduate. Robert Kennedy spoke at The Ambassador Hotel's ballroom and then walked through the kitchen on the way to the press area. An assassin jumped out from behind an ice machine and shot him fatally. The hotel went on to become a popular filming location anyway. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

11

The Last Jedi featured the remote island of Skellig Michael. After the film came out, tourism on the protected Irish island soared. And by soared, we mean thousands more visited every year than UNESCO said the island can safely sustain. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

10

The Clerks Quick Stop is a real store. Quick STOP GROCERIES They could only shoot after hours, so Kevin Smith I added ASSURE a joke where gum stuck the You WE'RE store's shutters closed. That way, OPEN! we couldn't tell these day scenes were shot at night. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

9

The real owners of Field of Dreams' field TRIED replanting afterward. $ S S But SO many people got upset, they had to promise never to do it again, else they'd have to leave the country. Then the two owners set up competing souvenir stands. One couldn't take the pressure and ended up selling to their rival. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

8

Con Air used a real plane for all its stunts. Before the film? The plane dropped Agent Orange on the Vietnamese. After the film? It crashed in Alaska, starting a wildfire and killing all aboard. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

7

The Dark Knight Rises filmed at an Indian fort. When construction began in 1459, local leader Jodha expelled a resident hermit, who threatened to curse the area with drought. To lift this supposed curse, Jodha gave the hermit a house-and buried a volunteer alive in the fort's foundations. The hermit's descendants live there to this day. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

6

The evil Skyfall lair is Gunkanjima in Japan. It used to house some 250 miners on just 16 acres. In 1974, the coal there ran out, and new jobs were offered on the mainland on a first-come, first-served basis. The residents fled the island as fast as they could, leaving toys on the floor and cups of coffee on the tables. GRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

5

The Big Lebowski filmed in Greystone Mansion. It was built in the 1920s by the son of tycoon Edward Doheny. Ned Doheny was found shot in a bedroom there five months after he and his wife moved in. Also dead was butler Theodore Plunkett, an apparent suicide. Was Plunkett crazy? Were he and Ned secret lovers? CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

4

Gladiator filmed at Fort Ricasoli in Malta. In 1807, soldiers there mutinied against the British. As food ran out, most fled, leaving just five inside. Before the British stormed the place to capture them, they managed to set fire to the powder room, which blew up, taking out half the fort. CRACKED — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

3

The set for 1923's The Ten Commandments was truly epic. Cecil B. DeMille didn't want painted backdrops, so 1,500 carpenters built an Egyptian city in the desert. After three weeks of filming, DeMille blew the entire set up with dynamite, unwilling to leave the expensive set for other filmmakers. But dunes covering the remains have done an excellent job of preserving them for almost 100 years. GRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

2

California's Spahn Ranch has an IMDb page most actors would kill for. It was used as a backdrop for everything from The Lone Ranger and Bonanza to shoddy softcore porn. Then, in 1970, it hosted the notorious Manson Family. Once the cult was arrested, they left the ranch empty. A few months later, a wildfire raged through and destroyed all the sets. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

1

12 Monkeys filmed in Philly's Eastern State Penitentiary. The place was built in 1829 in an effort to treat prisoners more humanely. Of course, at the time, humane treatment meant not letting them talk, forcing them to wear hoods whenever they were outside their cells, and forbidding any type of human interaction. CRACKED — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

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