'Manhunt: Deadly Games' Isn't Filmed Where You Think It Is
‘Manhunt: Deadly Games’ takes place in Atlanta, but where are its filming locations? They're likely not where you think they are.
Dec. 15 2020, Published 10:28 p.m. ET
The miniseries Manhunt: Deadly Games takes place in Atlanta, but that doesn’t mean its filming locations are also on-site. The second season of Manhunt was recently released on Netflix for our streaming pleasure, and after watching its gritty backdrop, viewers are wondering where the Manhunt: Deadly Games filming locations are.
Not to burst any bubbles, but the Manhunt: Deadly Games filming locations are not in Atlanta, like where the story takes place. It is based on the true story of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing; what makes it even more fascinating is the crossed wires between the actual culprit, Eric Rudolph (Jack Huston), and the presumed suspect, Richard Jewell (Cameron Britton). It’s pretty wild it’s a true story, but unfortunately, the producers felt Atlanta couldn’t capture on film what was needed to convey that.
The ‘Manhunt: Deadly Games’ filming locations are not in Atlanta.
Even though Manhunt: Deadly Games takes place in Atlanta, the second season is not filmed in Atlanta, but is instead filmed in and around Pittsburgh, Penn. Funnily enough, the first season was supposed to be filmed in Pennsylvania, but because of timeline mishaps, was actually filmed in Atlanta. So it was expected that the second season would be filmed there too, but co-creator Andrew Sodroski and Michael Dinner, the series’ director, felt Atlanta lacked the “texture and grit and variety” they needed.
One of the big reasons to film in Atlanta would have been to use Centennial Olympic Park, but it has been renovated so many times since 1996 that they’d need to reconstruct it anyway for the series. Because of that, as well as the need for a forest near the city for the forest scenes, they ended up in Pittsburgh. You might recognize the Manhunt: Deadly Games forests, because they were actually also seen in WGN America’s series Outsiders.
The ‘Manhunt: Deadly Games’ filming locations are mostly real places.
The familiar forests are actually in the Henry Kaufmann Family Park in Monroeville and McConnells Mill State Park in Lawrence County. For other filming locations, the crew took over the 31st Street Studios, which is where they built their recreation of Centennial Olympic Park. However, they did use more real onsite locations for familiar sets on the series.
The Old Blawnox post office building doubles as an FBI command center on Manhunt: Deadly Games and the Pittsburgh Allegheny Courthouse doubles as Atlanta City Hall’s rotunda. They also use the Ventana Hills Apartments in Coraopolis as the exterior of Richard Jewell’s apartment. Not only that, but Grieco’s Carefree Inn in Indianola was redressed as Applebee’s, and the whole borough of Kittanning became Murphy, N.C.
The first season of Manhunt chronicles the story of the Unabomber, and although it’s filmed in Atlanta, it actually takes place in Montana, as well as throughout the country as the show follows the FBI’s hunt to catch the culprit. Season 1 of Manhunt originally aired on the Discovery Channel, and the second season premiered on CBS earlier this year, but both are now available to stream on Netflix.
