Has traffic in downtown Atlanta seemed a little busier than usual this week? Thank Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack.
"Mockingjay," the next in the "Hunger Games" series and starring Lawrence and Hemsworth, has been shooting in the 200 Peachtree building. "Cell," a creepy thriller based on a Stephen King novel and starring Jackson and Cusack, has been in the Sweet Auburn area just a few blocks away.
We checked things out a few times this week, and while things were moving, it seemed there were trucks parked on about every other street in the affected areas. Combine that with assorted street repair projects and work on the new streetcar, and you have the potential for some delays.
"Mockingjay" also will star the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. While he had some work yet to be completed for "Mockingjay," filmmakers will be able to use CGI technology to place his likeness where it needs to be.
Various industry reports have indicated that Hoffman had about another week’s worth of filming yet to be completed; the real estate agent who negotiated the lease on Hoffman’s temporary Atlanta accommodations told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the actor was due to keep his local address until early April.
Hoffman, who was 46, was the second actor to die recently in the midst of a movie in production in Atlanta. In November, Paul Walker's death in a fiery Los Angeles car crash temporarily halted work on "Fast and Furious 7," which had been filming in Atlanta, and the movie's release date was pushed back. Not so with "Mockingjay." It was business as usual this week, from a production standpoint.
In less-morbid "Mockingjay" news, Atlanta residents Brandon and Anne Frazier were having dinner at Bookhouse Pub the other night when they literally bumped into some of the Hunger Gamers.
“Someone accidentally dropped the menu on my wife’s head,” Brandon Frazier said. “The person apologized and discussed with us how the menus were hard to hold. Come to figure out, this person was Liam Hemsworth.”
(Ladies, raise your hand if you would get mad at Liam Hemsworth for accidentally bonking you in the head with a menu. Yeah, we didn’t think so.)
“Then I connected the dots and saw Jennifer Lawrence standing right behind him with a group of five people,” Brandon Frazier continued. “The people beside us got up shortly after this interaction, then Jennifer’s group sat down right beside us. Jennifer sat beside my wife and their group seemed to be having a great time. As my wife and I were leaving, she asked Jennifer for a picture which she was completely OK with as long as it didn’t get posted on Facebook that night.”
J-Law posed for a photo with Anne Frazier while Hemsworth gave her bunny ears.
“Overall, a really awesome experience to meet them both,” Brandon Frazier said. “Wouldn’t have thought they would be so cordial as being A-list celebrities.”
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