Where Was "The Hunger Games" Filmed?

The official trailer for “The Hunger Games”

HOLLYWOOD

Where was the movie, “The Hunger Games“, filmed?

The short answer is North Carolina.

The longer, more detailed answer takes a bit more explanation.

First, why North Carolina? It certainly wasn’t the setting of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy of novels upon which the movie is based.

That all occurs in fictional Panem, in some post-Apocalyptic world. Indeed, the Capitol is supposed to be located in the Rocky Mountains.

The answer is money.

A couple of years earlier, North Carolina decided to follow the lead of New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and others in offering generous (some say “lavish”) production incentives to film makers. Filmmakers are eligible for a refund on 25 percent of salaries and money they spend on taxable items in North Carolina. That can be worth up to $20 million per film project, said a recent press release from state government.

For a film like “The Hunger Games”, which had a rather modest $78 million budget, the film tax credit was a significant chunk of change.

The governor, Bev Perdue, said in early March – a couple of weeks before the film opened – that “119 films are now under way in North Carolina.”

Film industry spending increased in the state from $75 million in 2010 to $220 million in 2011 ($60 million of which came from “The Hunger Games”). The financial incentives to film makers are being paid by the state’s travel and tourism industry.

Enough facts and figures, what about actual locations in the movie? Film makers went to dozens of locations in western North Carolina, including the following counties: Buncombe, Cabarrus, Catawba, Cleveland, Henderson, Mecklenburg and Transylvania. Every frame of the movie – except for the computer-generated fakery – was supposedly shot in North Carolina.

Want specific sites?

The Avenue of Tributes - a.k.a. Charlotte Convention Center (Lionsgate)

Charlotte - This area was where the fictional Capitol was located. Many different scenes were filmed here, at a variety of locations, including the more futuristic-looking buildings downtown. But frankly, anything of actual Charlotte was pretty much obliterated by the computer-generated filler (especially the “mountains”) shadowing every structure.

The Avenue of Tributes scene was shot in the Charlotte Convention Center, but as you can see from the photo above much CGI embellished the setting.

Philip Morris plant

The Knight Theater at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center was the site of the tribute interviews with Mr. Blue Hair. A decommissioned Philip Morris plant in nearby Concord was private enough – away from fans who mobbed filming sites – for interior scenes, such as Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) being marched around by stormtroopers from one set to another.

(Speaking of Charlotte, epicenter of stock car racing, NASCAR fans may notice the similarity hovercraft seats have to those in stock cars; incidentally, a colorful former driver, Soapy Castles, was a stunt performer in the film.)

Hildebran - This old mill town, just west of Hickory, almost became a ghost town after the cotton yarn manufacturers skedaddled to use sweatshops in cheaper countries, a generation ago. The Henry River Mill Village, now abandoned, is where the Mellark bakery and the Everdeen family’s shack were located.

Peeta Mellark's gray life in District 12 (Lionsgate)

The site is closed to the public, but there’s a new Hildebran Heritage Museum if you want to get a better idea of what “District 12″ looks like.

Pisgah National Forest – Film makers don’t pinpoint every scene they filmed in this rugged forest in the Appalachian Mountains around the Great Smoky Mountains, along which runs a large stretch of the famed Blue Ridge Parkway. But you can see some familiar terrain from the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center, northeast of Asheville. Off of old U.S. 70, east of town, take the North Fork Road out to Burnett Reservoir, where the Cornucopia scenes were filmed. Some of this is closed to the public (because it is a municipal water supply), so stay on marked trails. A hike of the Coleman Boundary, or Big Ivy, trail in northern Buncombe County should take you past Douglas Falls and Walker Falls and some familiar rock formations! For a panoramic view of it all, there’s a very cool zipline canopy tour in the area, offered by Navitat.

Katniss in DuPont State Forest, NC (Lionsgate)

DuPont State Forest- Waterfalls abound in this 10,000 acre forest, south of Asheville in Transylvania and Henderson counties. Check out some of the most famous Bridal Veil, Grassy Creek, High, Hooker, Triple and Wintergreen. Find the real landscapes which pretended to be artificial Arena settings in the movie. The fireball sequence was filmed here. Katniss’ pond was also in this park.

The park gets its name from the DuPont company, which used to own the land and use it for an x-ray film production facility.

Reaping scenes in Shelby, NC (Lionsgate)

Shelby – The Reaping scenes were shot at the old cotton warehouses on So. Lafayette Street. The Hall of Justice set was also supposedly built here.

Cast and crew remember the agony of triple-digit weather during the shooting here, which necessitated the actors being blasted with air conditioning, to avoid heat exhaustion in their heavy costumes and makeup.

Asheville – The armory was used for some training scenes. The cast spent almost two months working out of here in the summer of 2011, when most of the filming was done.

A “Hunger Games” Itinerary

North Carolina’s tourism folks have actually put together a suggested four-day itinerary around the state to see movie locations, sets and places where the cast and crew ate, stayed and played.

Return on Investment?

The producers said they had also scouted locations in New Mexico and Canada, but the scales were tipped in North Carolina’s favor by the state’s generous tax credit. Tourism authorities believe the state is shown to such good effect in “The Hunger Games“, tourists will be compelled to visit North Carolina in greater numbers – and more than make up for the millions paid to the film makers.

But if so many key locations in the movie, such as the creepy abandoned mill in Hildebran, the municipal water supply in Buncombe County, and the sterile Philip Morris plant, are closed to the public – how much tourism bang is possible for all those bucks?

Jerry Garrett

March 18, 2012

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