BUSINESS & INDUSTRY Two walker extras enjoy a cool treat in downtown Senoia during a break in fliming of “The Walking Dead.”
Steinfield. Steinfield is best known for her role as Mattie Ross in 2010’s “True Grit.” The film’s director, Peter Billingsley, is best known for playing Ralphie in “A Christmas Story.” Independent film “Sick People” completed three days of filming in Coweta in spring 2014. Senoia, home of Raleigh Studios Atlanta (formerly Riverwood Studios), gets most of the glory, but the rest of Coweta has seen its share of filming. Downtown Grantville and Sharpsburg have been featured prominently in “The Walking Dead,” and scenes were also filmed in Haralson, as well as on roads throughout the county. The cavernous Caldwell Tanks buildings in downtown Newnan have been featured in “The Walking Dead,” “The Hunger Games” and “Sick People.” Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva” was mostly filmed in Peachtree City, but there were scenes filmed in the 1904 Coweta courthouse and in other areas of the county. Scott Tigchelaar of Raleigh said the studio has been booked solid with “The Walking Dead,” and “Drop Dead Diva” in spring 2014 completed its final season with Lifetime cable network. “If the show is done after this, I’m sure somebody will end up going in 62 Coweta Living 2014-15
Photo courtesy AMC
those facilities,” he said of the “Diva” location. “There is no shortage of work going on right now.” Though filming has taken off in the past few years – after the state of Georgia implemented some of the most attractive tax incentives in the country for the industry – Coweta County has a long history in both television and film. In the 1990s, several movies were filmed in Coweta including, most famously, “Fried Green Tomatoes.” It featured scenes in Senoia, at Newnan’s Starcrest Nursing Home (now Avalon), and in the parking lot of Winn Dixie (now Food Depot). Another major name feature film was “Pet Sematary II,” shot in downtown Senoia and at Dunaway Gardens long before Dunaway was restored. The television series “I’ll Fly Away” was also filmed in and around Newnan. There were several movies filmed in Coweta in the ‘90s, including “The War” with Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood,” “Fluke,” “Mama Flora’s Family,” “The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn” starring Sidney Poitier and Dianne Wiest, and the epic 1996 TNT television miniseries “Andersonville.” The film industry left Georgia in the late 1990s, as other states passed tax incentives and Riverwood was
essentially closed for several years. Things began to pick up again – but just barely – when Georgia passed a sales tax exemption for movies in 2002. “Sweet Home Alabama,” starring Reese Witherspoon, was filmed partly at Wynn’s Pond in Sharpsburg. In 2003, “The Fighting Temptations,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé, was filmed partially in Senoia. The state’s income tax incentives were first approved in 2005, and then-State Sen. Mitch Seabaugh of Sharpsburg was the impetus behind them. “Broken Bridges” brought Toby Keith and Burt Reynolds to Senoia, Moreland and Grantville, and Newnan was the site of filming for the two seasons of television series “October Road.” But it was the updating of the tax incentives in 2008 that led to the activity we enjoy today. There have been so many movies filmed in Coweta in the past few years that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with them. None have been as popular as “Fried Green Tomatoes.” Probably the most well-known in recent memory is “Zombieland,” starring Woody Harrelson. In one scene, the characters played by Harrelson and Jesse Eisenburg are walking through downtown Newnan, which is strewn with trashed vehicles, tanks, trash and graffiti. Bill Murray, who happened to be in Coweta at the time filming the movie “Get Low” with Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek, also had a cameo in “Zombieland.” Other movies filmed in the past few years include “Lawless,” “Killers,” “Joyful Noise,” “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” and “Footloose II.” Filming will likely get even busier with the opening of the U.S. location of world-famous Pinewood Studios. The studio is located on Hwy. 54 in