#Movie production companies in georgia movie
#Movie production companies in georgia series

#Movie production companies in georgia movie

If Burt Reynolds was the movie star most identifiable with Georgia in the 1970s, Jessica Tandy was arguably Georgia’s most representative star of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Later films such as My Cousin Vinny (1992) and Remember the Titans (2000) were shot throughout the state. Sharky’s Machine (1981), directed by and starring Burt Reynolds, caused a sensation in downtown Atlanta when the film crew shot a 220-foot outdoor free-fall stunt from the top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel.

#Movie production companies in georgia series

I’ll Fly Away (1991-93), an NBC series starring Sam Waterston as a southern lawyer at the dawn of the civil rights movement, was shot largely in historic Madison, as well as in Conyers, Covington, Monticello, Newnan, and other locations.įeature-film production boomed in Georgia throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

In the Heat of the Night Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development.Ĭovington was not the only Georgia city to be seen nightly on the nation’s television screens. Production of the show became part of everyday life for residents of Covington, with numerous locals hired as extras and several area businesses serving the production crew. Covington stood in for Sparta, Mississippi, where the two characters solved a different crime each episode, frequently overcoming racial tensions and small-town politics. Conceived as a continuation of the 1967 Academy Award–winning film of the same name, In the Heat of the Night stars Carroll O’Connor as a small-town sheriff and Howard E. The 1980s and 1990s: Covington, Miss Daisy, and SavannahĬovington would later feature prominently in another television series, In the Heat of the Night (1988-94). The first jumping of the General Lee (seen in the show’s opening credits) took place on the campus of nearby Oxford College of Emory University. Although Dukes later moved production to California, the first several episodes were shot in and around the city of Covington. Onetime Georgia resident John Schneider and Tom Wopat starred as the Duke boys, rebellious cousins always outrunning the local police in their muscle car, the General Lee. Smokey and the Bandit Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development.ĬBS was quick to jump on this craze with its hit television series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-85). Shot on various state highways, in such towns as Jonesboro, and at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, these hugely successful films launched a craze of car-chase films at the end of the decade. Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) both feature Reynolds as the Bandit, an outlaw pursued at high speeds across the South by Sheriff Buford T. Production grew in Georgia throughout the 1970s, and it was once again Burt Reynolds who brought blockbuster projects to the state. He established a state film commission in 1973 to market Georgia as a shooting location for future projects. But the production was an economic boon to the state, a fact not lost on then- governor Jimmy Carter. Shot along the Chattooga River in Rabun County, the film was a commercial and critical success.ĭeliverance was locally controversial in its perceived depiction of mountain residents as backwoods hillbillies. Based on the best-selling James Dickey novel and directed by John Boorman, Deliverance stars Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Burt Reynolds, and Jon Voight as Atlanta businessmen whose rafting excursion down a remote mountain river goes horribly wrong. The 1970s: Burt Reynolds and the Car-Chase CrazeĪlthough various movies have been shot in Georgia since the early days of film, it was Deliverance (1972) that truly brought the state to Hollywood’s attention. Since the tax credit, projects filmed in Georgia have used studios to portray any number of places, including outer space. In the last decades of the twentieth century, shows set in the South were most likely to film in the state. Georgia competes with many other states and countries for film and television projects, but the kinds of projects Georgia has attracted have changed over time. Once a film or television project has been approved, it is up to the project’s producer to find a cost-effective location that fits the needs of the screenplay. Georgia’s diverse geography, moderate climate, transportation infrastructure, modern amenities, and skilled film crews have long made it an attractive destination for film companies, but it was a major tax credit passed by the state legislature in 2008 that truly solidified Georgia’s film industry.