‘Press Your Luck’ hosted by Elizabeth Banks shooting Season 7 in Atlanta
ABC is moving prime-time game show “Press Your Luck” to Atlanta after shooting in Los Angeles for six seasons.
Season 7 is scheduled for production from April 11-26 at Fayetteville’s Trilith Studios, according to information provided to IATSE 479, the local union representing most crew members.
The game show, which originally ran from 1983 to 1986, has been hosted by actor Elizabeth Banks since the reboot debuted in 2019.
The concept of the show is simple: Three contestants answer trivia questions to earn spins on a “Big Board,” where they win cash and prizes. But if they spin and hit a Whammy, they could lose everything up to that point, with four Whammys eliminating them from the game.
Contestants can win up to $1 million, though in six seasons of the reboot, nobody has won the maximum amount.
The show has generated strong enough ratings in recent years to stay on the air, pulling in comparable overnight Nielsen numbers to fellow ABC show “Match Game” but lagging behind “Celebrity Family Feud” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”
California has amped up its tax credit system in recent years, but the emphasis has been on scripted TV series and pricier reality competition shows. Game shows have not been a priority.
As a result, more game shows have been moving to metro Atlanta the past two years, even as other types of productions have gone elsewhere.
ABC, for instance, moved its prime-time “Celebrity Family Feud,” hosted by Atlantan Steve Harvey, to Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta last year after taping the show for several years in Los Angeles. It’s also set to shoot at Trilith Studios in May for a new season.
Fox last year moved “The 1% Club,” hosted by Joel McHale, to Atlanta after it took over the game show from Amazon.
Other game shows produced in Atlanta the past two years include syndicated offerings like “Scrambled Up,” with host Michael Yo; “The Perfect Line,” with host and Georgia native Deborah Norville; and “Flip Side,” with host Jaleel White. The current season of the syndicated version of “Family Feud” is taping now.
Banks is no stranger to metro Atlanta. The 52-year-old “Pitch Perfect” actress shot 2018 horror movie “Brightburn” and three “The Hunger Games” movies in the early 2010s locally.
She stars in the dramedy series “The Miniature Wife,” which comes out April 9 on Peacock and was shot in Canada.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
