Okay so remember the town from that movie that made you cried, Big Fish, called Spectre? It looked like this:
It's the most perfect place ever where everyone tossed their shoes on a clothesline so they could walk around barefoot forever. Ewan McGregor ends up there, decides he can't settle, vows to come back, and leaves.
Bye bb!
He comes back years later and the town is abandoned. It's sad and metaphorical and blah blah. Anyway, this is a "real" place in Alabama.
Tim Burton created the town from scratch near a town called Millbrook.
It's on an island in the middle of a lake.
The "town" still exists and Johnny Joo, who runs the website Architectural Afterlife, stopped there recently and took these pictures of what it looks like today.
It's on land that is privately owned and behind a gate, but all you have to do is call a number and the family that owns it will give you a code to open it for $3.
You can camp there for $10.
When production began the buildings were "new."
After those scenes were finished, the houses were artificially distressed for the scenes when Ewan's character returns.
It's like a fake abandoned abandoned place.
Even some of the trees are fake!
The "town" was apparently kept up because Tim Burton asked the land owners to leave the buildings, which is pretty cool.
There was only one house interior built out for the movie and it was for a scene where Steve Buscemi ate pie.
This, ladies and gentleman, is where Steve Buscemi ate pie.
Today, it's unfortunately a fraction of what it was during filming.
