The abandoned North Carolina milltown that served as the real-life stand in for the fictional District 12 in “The Hunger Games” has been put up for sale by its owner, The Guardian reports. It can be yours for a mere $1.4 million.
Here’s the nut graf:
“Henry River Mill Village, which covers 72 acres, was used by producers to shoot scenes in District 12, where the film’s heroine Katniss Everdeen lives in Gary Ross’s dystopian science-fiction film. The mill itself, which produced fine yarn, closed some time in the 1960s and the last resident moved out in 1987. The building burned down in 1977, but more than 20 others remain including the company store which doubled for the family bakery where Everdeen encounters Peeta Mellark in a flashback scene.
“I’m getting too many visitors,” the ghost town’s owner, Wade Shepherd, 83, of Transylvania County told the Associated Press. “Day and night, they’re driving through, taking pictures, getting out and walking. I’m just bombarded with people.”
The Hunger Games was shot entirely in North Carolina, with the state’s largest city Charlotte even doubling as the opulent Capitol, which in the young adult novels by Suzanne Collins is said to be somewhere in the Rocky mountains. Film-makers spent more than $60m in the state and employed 5,000 people. It’s likely that studio Lionsgate will return for production of the sequel Catching Fire, which features several scenes set in District 12, so Shepherd may be hoping to cash in by selling Henry River Mill Village to a film industry buyer.”
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