Courtesy of Visit Alexandria
The cast of the PBS series Mercy Street visited the Carlyle House and other Alexandria historic landmarks while filming.
When Wonder Woman 1984 comes to theaters in November 2019, starring Gal Gadot, Kristin Wiig and Lynda Carter, Alexandria moviegoers will quickly recognize a 1980s-styled Landmark Mall. Some residents may see their own vintage cars in parking lot scenes, and others will recognize friends cast as extras.
Of all the projects filmed in Alexandria this year, Wonder Woman 1984 garnered the most attention — but several other projects have visited Alexandria this year.
The 2018 season of the Bravo Show The Real Housewives of Potomac featured Candiace Dillard, who is engaged to Alexandria restaurant investor Chris Bassett.
Amazon series Mount Hideaway has been filming in Alexandria, as well. The series follows a spy, a thief, a private eye and a country preacher as they solve crimes in a fictional small town.
In the past three years, Alexandria has also hosted film crews from NBC’s The Voice, Travel Channel’s Food Paradise, Cooking Channel’s Cheap Eats, HGTV’s House Hunters, Inside Edition and CNBC’s Blue Collar Millionaires in addition to several local television news live shots and stories.
With each project comes a boost to the local economy.
“The whole economic benefit of the film industry is that these are short term projects that generate immediate revenue, and yet don’t put a strain on city services,” said Ann Dorman, who operates the Alexandria Film Office through Visit Alexandria on behalf of the City.
“They come in, bring a lot of people with them who are staying in hotel rooms, eating in our restaurants, renting production materials, buying construction equipment and props, hiring local construction support, and also hiring local actors and talent. It’s an immediate boost to the economy,” Dorman said.
The Alexandria Film Office through Visit Alexandria coordinates applications and permits for the City of Alexandria for filming on public property. This includes Alexandria’s streets, historic sites, parks and more. Virginia has a reputation for being film-friendly, with a variety of incentives in place to draw production crews. Alexandria, in particular, has a reputation of being easy to work with.
In some cases, the economic boost lasts for years, as has been the case with the PBS series Mercy Street.
Mercy Street was filmed in the Richmond area, but the plot was inspired by real events in Alexandria during the Civil War. Stars of the drama including L. Scott Caldwell and Hannah James, toured Alexandria. Several Alexandria museums and historic sites still offer Mercy Street-inspired tours of historic spots and venues, and there was a measurable increase in historic site visitation and in local museum visitation, according to Visit Alexandria.
“The other advantage of it is that it helps us expand awareness of Alexandria both nationally and internationally when the city is featured in the movie or in the press about the movie,” Dorman said.
Alexandria Living Magazine
Mount Hideaway director and editor Brett Monk Sunday morning at 529 Kids Consign in Old Town Alexandria.
In addition to the tourism boost, some projects, like Mount Hideaway, work with and support local retail businesses. In addition to filming inside 529 Kids Consign, the Amazon series hired local hair and makeup artists.
“One of the reasons we really love shooting here in Old Town is that you’ve got this small-town neighborhood feeling, even though you’re in the thick of Northern Virginia,” said Mount Hideaway Director and Editor Brett Monk (pictured at right). “In a lot of the rest of Northern Virginia, you don’t have this kind of neighborhood feel.”
A number of award-winning projects have used Alexandria as a backdrop, according to Visit Alexandria President and CEO Patricia Washington.
Jackie was a 2016 biographical drama about the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis following the 1963 assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. The film starred Natalie Portman and was nominated for three Oscars.
J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was a 2011 biographical drama about the life and times of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It was nominated for multiple awards, including a Golden Globe, and won awards from the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review.
Other films include the Kevin Bacon sci-fi thrilled Hollow Man (2000), key scenes of which were filmed at a South St. Asaph Street townhome. The movie was a box office and special effects success, but critics were unimpressed.
Scenes from National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) also were filmed in Old Town. That movie starred Nicolas Cage and Diane Kruger. In addition, scenes from the award-winning 1993 film The Pelican Brief and the 1986 thriller No Way Out feature regional landmarks.
One of Alexandria’s biggest local productions (prior to Wonder Woman 1984) was the 1998 Harrison Ford movie Random Hearts, the filming of which shut down King Street in Old Town Alexandria for a week. Ford starred alongside Kristin Scott Thomas. The movie was directed by Sidney Pollack.
“Alexandria is attractive to many film producers due to our proximity to D.C., differing ‘looks’ in diverse neighborhoods and the ease of working with the Alexandria Film Office operated by Visit Alexandria,” said Visit Alexandria President Patricia Washington earlier this year.
Several episodes of the political serial drama The West Wing were filmed in Alexandria, including the season two premiere shot outside Dixie Pig (now Vaso’s Kitchen) that featured multiple Alexandria police officers and their vehicles. Show producer John Wells was born here in Alexandria.
INSPIRED BY ALEXANDRIA — BUT NOT FILMED HERE
Alexandria has also inspired several projects not actually filmed here, in addition to the PBS series Mercy Street.
The 2000 movie starring Denzel Washington, Remember the Titans, followed the 1971 consolidation of Alexandria’s high schools and the integrated football team that won the state championship that year. The movie itself was filmed in Georgia (with a few scenes in Roanoke, Virginia).
12 Years a Slave was filmed in Louisiana in 2012. Solomon Northup, the slave whose memoir the movie recounts, was not held in Alexandria. However, the man who kidnapped Northup in Washington, DC was James Birch, who later went on to own the slave trading firm Franklin and Armfield in Alexandria. Today, that trading firm is the Freedom House, now operated as a museum by the Office of Historic Alexandria with a partnership with the Northern Virginia Urban League. After 12 Years a Slave was released, Freedom House saw an uptick in visits as moviegoers wanted to have an experience standing in a historic site similar to where Solomon Northrup was held.
Alexandria is one of just a few Northern Virginia jurisdictions with a film office and a coordinator dedicated to helping ensure all relevant City departments are coordinated properly.
“Having Wonder Woman in the West End is an example of the way Alexandria residents truly embrace and are always open to help with projects like this,” Dorman said. Alexandria’s Workforce Development Office coordinated the recruitment of a legion of extras. A call for vintage cars came out and the antique car community came out in force with 1970s and early 1980s vehicles for the production.
When Wonder Woman 1984 is finally released in 2019, expect a variety of film-related events in Alexandria. In the meantime, keep an eye out for other movies, television shows and independent projects being filmed in Alexandria’s streets and shops.
