Just in time for Valentine’s date nights at the movies, here are two remade romances with Atlanta connections. Both open Friday.
"Endless Love," a peppy remake loosely pegged to the darker 1981 original, was filmed in Atlanta and set here. Look for local spots including The Estate events facility, which was used for a restaurant scene; the Georgia World Congress Center, which was used, as it often is by filmmakers, for an airport scene; a private home in Buckhead, used as the main character's family home; and Zoo Atlanta, used for a zoo scene. The movie also filmed during a performance at Music Midtown and at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
“About Last Night,” racier than the 1986 original, wasn’t filmed here, but two of its stars came to Atlanta on a promotional tour (and got a sampling of some of our crazy winter weather.)
During a promotional stop in Atlanta for "Endless Love," Alex Pettyfer said the goal was to make "a fun, lighthearted movie."
He and Gabriella Wilde are the star-crossed David and Jade, reprising roles initially held by Martin Hewitt and Brooke Shields.
Unlike the original, slightly twisted David, his character is upstanding and thoroughly lovable.
“We’re both hopeless romantics,” Pettyfer said, referring to his similarities to his character. “He’s a guy who just wants a fresh start in life. A guy who’s got hope. It’s his biggest factor. It’s very appealing. I remember my first love.”
The craziest thing he ever did for love?
“I got on a plane for 12 hours and went and saw a girl,” he said. “That’s the only flight I’ve ever taken by myself.”
How’d that work out?
“I’m single,” he deadpanned. “I’m spending this Valentine’s with my mum. She wants to go see ‘Endless Love.’”
Michael Ealy and Regina Hall were in Atlanta to promote "About Last Night" right as Atlanta faced its first blast of winter weather. They play Danny and Joan, reprising roles originally held by Rob Lowe and Elizabeth Perkins.
"A remake is still kind of an interesting term to us," Ealy said. "It's a reboot of the '80s movie. It's closer to the play (by David Mamet) than it is to the movie. At the end of the day it's a contemporary version of this same exact story."
Hall said the movie, also starring Kevin Hart and Joy Bryant, was a fun project.
“The director gave us a lot of room,” she said. “We got to create a lot of chemistry. We got to try some interesting things where the energy of the movie could ebb and flow.”
Ealy is known for a variety of roles, from the troubled Beau Willie in "For Colored Girls" (a Tyler Perry-directed film that was shot largely in Atlanta) to the determined Joe Bradford in "Unconditional" to the super-responsible Ezra in "Last Vegas," another Atlanta-made movie, to fun Dominic in "Think Like a Man" and that movie's upcoming sequel.
“It’s my job to stretch and figure out what I’m capable of,” Ealy said, “to identify with the character I have chosen to play.”
A couple of weeks ago, during Snowmageddon Part I, Ealy starred in an indie called “I Am Trapped in a Car Due to Atlanta’s Snowstorm.”
Nikole Morrow-Pettus, local hair-and-makeup goddess to the stars, emailed us during their time in captivity.
“Trying to get to the hotel. Its been two hours already in this car,” she said then. Their ordeal was mercifully over in a couple of hours and it didn’t slow him down a bit. After Atlanta’s paralyzing 2-inch blizzard at the end of January, Ealy and Hall were off to Chicago and he quipped on Twitter, “From one frozen tundra to the next!”
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