Have you seen the new Steven Spielberg sci-fi thriller "Super 8?" Here's my story. It was filmed in my hometown of Weirton, WV. Although the fictional town is "Lillian, Ohio," it was actually in Weirton.
I grew up in the midst of all those scenes you see in the movie. I knew them all.
It was a great thrill for me to see that for a couple of reasons. I still have family there who watched it being made. But more so because they needed some good times. Weirton Steel Company, when I was growing up, employed 10s of thousands of people. All my friends and their fathers worked in the mill. Now, it's a ghost town, scratching out a living. Many, many, many, many locals were used as extras, some with speaking parts and lots of their old cars (70s) were used.
For Hollywood to select Weirton as the setting was a truly unexpected blessing. Some experts say that towns where these kinds of movies are shot become movie buff destinations.
In any event, it was hard for me to not jump up in the theater and say, "I know all those places.....I played pinball in that bus terminal.....That's Marland Height school, where I hung out.....that's PennWay Pharmacy where we sat at the soda fountain....and on and on.
http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=16755
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Nq3UcblO8[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ccmcs5jTI[/ame]