Doug Liman’s action comedy titled American Made came out in 2017 and is an entertaining film made in a classic Tom Cruise way that does not require you to engage your brain all that much. While the movie does feel like any other Tom Cruise film, it also shows the star’s power to bring the audience to the theatres.
Written by Gary Spinelli, the film’s story revolves around our lead, a commercial airline pilot who gets sucked into a drug and arms deal. And in hopes of getting his jail time reduced and being out of that hellhole, he decided to agree to be an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Turns out that the story of this film was inspired by the real-life events of a man named Barry Seal, an airline pilot who had turned to work for the CIA and turned into a drug smuggler in the 1980s for a Columbian drug cartel that went by the name, Medellin Cartel.
When his cover was blown, and he was thrown into jail for his crimes, Seal was offered a choice: either be an undercover informant for the DEA or remain in jail for years to come. He chose the former and the rest, if you are curious, you can find after watching the movie.
This Cruise-led film was made under a budget of $50 million and managed to earn a gross earning of thrice its budget, standing at $134.9 million. The movie has action and fight scenes and badass stunts that are all typical of Tom Cruise films.
Apart from our leading star, the movie also has Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Lola Kirke, Alejandro Edda, Jayma Mays, Benito Martinez, and so many other talented actors that pop on the screen throughout the film.
Although the movie is inspired by the life events of a real entity, the character is not far off or new to the actor, who has maintained his streak of doing similar roles over and over again. Let us tell you all about the filming locations of this grand action film.
American Made Filming Locations
Atlanta, Georgia
The filming for this movie kicked off in May of 2015 and was wrapped only after two months, in July 2015. A significant portion of the film was shot solely in Georgia and parts of it and around it.
Atlanta, Georgia, is a main spot for many producers who wish to produce a film and also not go too high with the budget. The state also offers tax concessions to filmmakers, which is, obviously attractive to them.
While in Georgia, the principal shooting took place in a bunch of different counties, including Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Morgan, and Pickens. While these sound like a lot, the producers of the film found themselves in Medellin, Columbia, and Santa Marta in hopes of finding more accurate locations that would sit well with the story.
From August to September of that year, the crew spent their time in Columbia for the film’s shoot. From what we know, the crew was also supposed to drop by New Orleans in Louisiana to film some of the scenes, but the news of a plane crash on their set in Columbia got the filming process shut entirely.
So, for the scenes that were still left, the producers found an alternative location in Atlanta itself, where the shoot for the entire film was finally wrapped up. The actors and crew members on set posted a lot of fun behind-the-scenes moments from the film while they were in the process of filming, which also confirmed the different shooting locations where they had dropped.
The crew was also spotted in Ball Ground City in Cherokee County. The scenes that needed to have Mena, Arkansas, as their background were also filmed in Ball Ground, especially on the Gilmer Ferry Road.
Some other specific locations that can be spotted in the movie include the Atlanta Media Campus, a training facility north of Atlanta, somewhere in Rosewell, and Candler Field in Williamson, among many others.
A quick look at the behind-the-scenes photographs of the actors prepping for their shoot just goes on to show how much fun the making of the movie was. And maybe that is why the entire length of the film also turned out to be an entertaining watch, so make sure you binge American Made if you haven’t already.
