why do so many movies build these huge elaborate sets?

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I see so many movies, old and new, that I think I’m seeing an actual house, or a street, or some place. Then when I see the behind the scenes footage, it’s often not a real house, or street scene. It always just seems like such a huge waste of money. Could they not have found or used a real house or street or town?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Don’t forget a lot of studios have backlots – purpose-built streets full of buildings that get reused for multiple productions. Think of how many movies need an old West town, or a New York city street, or rows of Chicago-style brownstone houses, or a medieval European village. They’re not building whole new fake locations just for one movie or TV show, they use the same backlots and dress the sets to suit whatever they’re making. Some of Universal Studios’ backlots have been around since the 1930s, albeit rebuilt periodically. Their “Little Europe” backlot, for instance, was used in a lot of their early horror movies like *Frankenstein* and *Dracula*, and later as European streets in the *Pink Panther* movies, as Port Royal in the *Pirates of the Caribbean* movies, even as Neighborhood 12358W in *The Good Place*.

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