With the latest Ghostbusters film Ghostbusters: Afterlife about to drop mid-November – a film shot primarily in and around Calgary – faithful fans of the franchise are looking to immerse themselves in the settings of their favorite movie, while learning about the communities that hosted its iconic scenes.
Visit the Water Tower in Drumheller or the Apple Pie Café in Beiseker (both approximately a one-hour drive from Calgary). In Calgary, one of Canada’s largest urban centres, visit National and Regional historic site Lougheed House to be immersed in one of their interactive events while walking in the footsteps of Ghostbusters characters.
With widely varying landscapes from mountain ranges to ranches to vibrant cities to the Badlands where the dinosaurs once roamed, Alberta has become an extremely desirable location for filming, particularly with the Film and Television Tax Credit currently available. Alberta’s TV and film industry projects more than $482 million and 9,000 jobs will have been injected into the province in 2021.
While Ghostbusters: Afterlife was filmed in 2019 and its release delayed until November 2021 due to the pandemic, recently there have been many notable TV and film projects in and nearby Calgary in the province, that could draw droves of visitors hoping to snap a selfie to their locations upon their release.
Other filming productions in Calgary in 2021 include Billy the Kid, Under the Banner of Heaven, Guilty Party (where Kate Beckinsale was spotted filming in the historic neighbourhood of Inglewood), Fraggle Rock the reboot (where the crew was spotted at Luke’s Drug Mart indulging on their well-known ice cream after shooting a scene there) and the largest ever production in Canada The Last of Us.
The Last of Us filming is on-going and the cult-following of this post-apocalyptic video game-turned-HBO show is highly anticipated. Some scenes recently filmed in Calgary were at Victoria Park, the 4th Street overpass, boutique hotel Hotel Arts and Stampede Park, already a hub of tourism activity, which could draw even more visitors to the park when the show is released next year.
No need to plan a trip to Hollywood or New York City to visit where favourite shows and movies were filmed. Calgary has some of the most iconic film locations to show off to visitors as the trend of film tourism continues to rapidly grow.
