The Ext. Street Blog
Top Ten Movie Locations that Never Existed
...but you can still visit
As filmgoers, we are used to cinematic sleight-of-hand creating locations that do not exist. Through models, matte paintings and CGI, anything a production designer can imagine can exist on the screen. As well as the fantastical, this can also include the far more down to earth, and you may end up disappointed to find that famous location you always wanted to visit don't exist.
A great example is the beautiful Vandamm house as seen in North by Northwest. Inspired by the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, this exquisite building exists only as blueprints and a matte painting. The interior was of course a studio set.
But there is a small subset of film locations that, although they never existed, very much do have real world surroundings. So here, we count down ten filming locations you can still visit, that never existed.
Skyfall from Skyfall
Skyfall was revealed as Bond’s childhood home, a huge lodge in the Scottish Highlands. The building never existed; it was a set constructed for filming, and it wasn’t even in Scotland. You can visit its location at Hankley Common in Surrey. Without any obvious landmarks to triangulate from, the exact spot can prove quite a challenge to find, although we think we’ve come fairly close.
The producers behind Bond were not afraid of fabricating locations for his adventures. The Venetian building which sinks into the canal at the climax of Casino Royale, and the CNS building in Spectre are also figments of CGI.
Sal’s Famous Pizzeria from Do The Right Thing
Considering its ultimate fate, you might not be too surprised to find that Sal’s Famous Pizzeria no longer serves pies on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn. But it never existed in the first place. The restaurant was built in a vacant lot for Spike Lee’s milestone film on a street that has since been re-christened Do The Right Thing Way.
The Bench from Forrest Gump
Tom Hanks’ good-hearted simpleton dispensed aphorisms while recounting his storied life sat on the famous bench in Chippewa Square, Savannah. The square is very real, but there was never a bus stop here, and the bench was a number of props brought in for filming, one of which is on display at the nearby Savannah History Museum.
The Elephant Fountain from Die Hard With A Vengeance
Who’d have thought that Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson arguing about how to solve a simplistic maths puzzle involving jugs of water would make for cinematic gold? The scene of this Crystal Maze style challenge is Tompkins Square Park in the East Village of Manhattan. The fountain was of course a prop.
The Bulldog Cafe from The Rocketeer
Maybe it’s just too cute, too kitsch to exist in real life, but who wouldn’t want a coffee and slice of pie at the Bulldog Cafe. The location is hardly great for casual drop-ins either, being on a remote road in Newhall Orchards, Piru. The entire building was made for the film.
MacLeod’s Keep from Highlander
Given that the Scottish landscape is home to many extant castles, and others appear in the film, you wouldn’t be naive to imagine they found one to film the scenes of MacLeod in exile with Heather. A very convincing piece of set design that is destroyed during Kurgan’s battle with Ramirez, it is located at The Study, Glencoe in Scotland
The freeway sign from LA Story
The freeway sign that awakens and enlightens Steve Martin’s bored meteorologist becomes a character in its own right. But if you are seeking similar inspiration, you’ll be left searching in the bushes. Although Burbank Boulevard, the freeway itself is very real, the sign is a fabrication.
The Retro Dairy Mart mural from La La Land
Damien Chazelle’s 2016 musical is a technicolour tour through LA’s most photogenic locations. So many of them exist just as they are seen on film, so it is a bit disappointing that the vibrant mural next to the Retro Dairy Mart where Ryan Gosling stops for a morning coffee, on Magnolia Boulevard is a prop. In reality it’s just a grey wall proclaiming “Free delivery, parking in rear.” Not quite as romantic.
Stan Mikita’s Donuts from Wayne’s World
In Wayne’s World, this donut shop is the hub of the party-hearty scene in Aurora, Illinois. In our world however, it is actually Puerto Nuevo Coffee & Tacos in Inglewood, Los Angeles. The huge replica of the famed Hockey player on the roof was a prop imagined by Mike Meyers for the film.
The Old Lighthouse from The Goonies
Even though it is in a state of disrepair, the old lighthouse, the Fratelli’s hide-out in The Goonies, looks as though a decent find-raiser could bring it back to life. It was built entirely for the film and is located in Ecola State Park which is otherwise very real.