Weirton West Virginia, became the small town of Lillian Heights Ohio for the filming of Super 8, the mysterious JJ Abrams/Steven Spielberg production about some kids who discover some terrifying secret found on one of their old Super 8 films.
And now that production is completed in the area, they are still benefitting from its presence.
After participating in two days of filming, Weir Middle School received five iMac computers valued at nearly $1,500 a piece and six wardrobe screen partitions, which Principal Dan Enich said were already being used.
Enich said the students had a great time participating in the filming. He said he and students were at the Marland Heights location for two days to shoot several scenes for the Paramount Pictures movie recently shot in the Weirton area.
“We would just like thank Paramount Pictures and those involved in the movie for the experience of a lifetime for our students and our school,” he said.
This of course is likely in addition to the boost in local economy for the area, as well as the financial fees gathered for filming itself.
But its nice to see they left behind some souvenirs.
I have lived in Weirton my whole life and they filmed parts of the movie right on my neighborhood street. It was one of the most pain in the ass experiences of my life. You had to ask if you could leave your house and go to your house, they bitched if you let your dog out to do his business, and it was constantly loud. It was cool though seeing the army tanks rolling through my neighborhood and all the military soldiers they were using. The aa gun they used for a scene was loud as hell. Interesting also was my little cousin Jacob got cast as the kid version of one of the main male leads he’s I think 13 now. He got to get directed by abrams so lucky. He did introduce me to him and i got a picture and autograph from him so that was cool. My cousin said on the last night of filming for him was best cuz it was like 3 in the morning and they filmed a scene where a UFO was putting like a tractor beam thing down from the sky sucking up humans it said it was the coolest thing he has ever seen and experienced.
Sweet!
Great news and awesome for the kids and the school.