A Belated trip to Spectre

 I finally made it to Spectre, the fictional town in the movie "Big Fish". The town set was built on a small island near the Alabama River Parkway!

 

Some of the buildings are still in place. They were left the way the abandoned town looked at the end of the movie. The crew used pressure washers to weather the structures, creating the peeling paint look you'll still see now.

The island is privately owned, but visitors are allowed for a small fee ($3). Camping is permitted as well (for a higher fee). The island is home to a herd of goats. They more or less ignore humans.

      You'll recognize downtown Wetumpka, including the The Bibb Graves Bridge, and the Huntingdon campus in Montgomery filling in for Auburn University. 

     The movie did well, but A 2013 Broadway adaption failed, closing after just a months and fewer than 100 performances. 

     Tim Burton was seen a lot in the Cloverdale neighborhood during the 2003 filming. 
     Our only meeting happened at a restaurant when we approached him to say hello during lunch and he more or less gave us the bum's rush. 
     Hey, he's a big-name guy, but if you are going to be out in public you have to accept some fan interaction. Our brief encounter was nothing to him, but left us with a negative impression that lasts to this day.

     I'm almost always happy to talk with fans in my much smaller fish TV role in Alabama, but I'm also sure someone, somewhere in Alabama caught me on an especially bad day...and I did the same. 
     If you were the person to whom I was less friendly than I should have been, I apologize for acting like a big fish. 😎