On Location in Elmore County

Big Fish isn’t the only big movie that was filmed in Elmore County. Tim Burton, who directed Big Fish in 2003, returned to Alabama a few years ago to record The Devil All the Time, starring Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson of the Spider Man and Twilight series films, respectively.

Fans can visit the historic Pine Flat Presbyterian Church in Deatsville, which was featured in both films. Scenes from The Devil All the Time include about 50 locals as extras in the church congregation.

And at Spectre, a town that never really existed, fans can stroll through the movie set for Big Fish, which still stands on a private island in Elmore County. Visitors to the Town of Spectre travel from as far away as Europe and Canada to fish, camp and take in the peaceful atmosphere of this town out of time where island owners Bobby and Lynn Bright love seeing guests enjoy all that the island has to offer.

The set survived because the landowners had a change of heart. When Bright’s family first agreed to the use of the property as a set location for the film, the crew was under contract to leave the island as they found it. But over the course of the nine months of construction and filming, the Brights fell in love with the town that Burton’s crew created.

“We were invited to watch the filming of the party scene, where all the townspeople dance in streets. It was so perfect, right down to the grass. That town, that night, would have taken your breath away,” Lynn Bright told us in 2016.

The Brights got to meet several of the actors, as well as director Tim Burton, and as filming neared completion, they started to think about changing their contract.

“As it got close to time, we thought, ‘Why would we ask them to tear it all down? People might want to see this,’” Bright said.

As it turns out, they were right, but it took a while for word to get out.

“For the first eight, nine or 10 years, there was hardly any interest. A lot of people from the area didn’t even know it was here,” she added.

In that time, some of the town was lost. The film crew had already aged the town’s buildings for the latter scenes of the movie, when Ewan McGregor’s character, Edward, returns to Spectre years after his first visit to find it in disrepair. On top of that, several parts of the set had to be removed for safety reasons, like the spooky forest constructed of Styrofoam and metal that Edward braved in order to reach Spectre.

“In very little time, it started becoming dangerous. The whole forest was full of metal spikes, weeds and vines. My husband finally had to get it out of here,” she said.

The tilted house on the water’s edge, which belonged to Helena Bonham Carter’s character, also had to be removed after flooding left it unsafe to enter. The Brights left the house’s porch pillars standing on the shore, along with a plaque to mark the spot.

Another loss was the storefronts that lined Spectre’s main street in the film. Soon after filming ended, the false three-sided storefronts began to lean and collapse. When Bobby Bright tried to burn the remains of one of the fallen structures, a stray spark drifted across the road and set the rest of Spectre’s commercial district on fire.

“It burned to the ground,” said Bright. “I think we had about 11 fire departments come to our rescue that day.”

At first, the Brights believed they had been wrong about the town’s tourism draw. But that changed with the increase in social media outlets in the early 2010s.

“When social media picked up, they started coming from farther and farther away. Now every weekend we have people from another state, if not another country,” said Bright.

Visitors have come from as far away as Australia and France to see the remains of Spectre. Although Lynn Bright loved being part of the experience of making Big Fish, she originally was lukewarm about the film itself; however, talking to fans of the film who travelled such long distances to see Spectre changed her perception.

“I’m really proud we kept it,” said Bright.

Jackson Lake Island is located off Alabama River Parkway, about 4.5 miles south of Millbrook. It can be accessed seven days a week during daylight hours. Admission is $3. For more information, visit the Jackson Lake Island Facebook page.

Pine Flat Presbyterian Church is located between Deatsville and Marbury on state Route 143.