The hop-on-hop-off bus travels over most of the city of New Orleans including the Garden District (the more wealthy part of New Orleans), the French Quarter (the original city), the cemeteries (such as Lafayette Cemetary, used in the movie Double Jeopardy), the CBD, and the shopping precincts. New Orleans doesn't favour chains or franchises preferring individual shops which is kind of refreshing but also frustrating too as they don't really have shopping malls - just shops along the street...but those streets stretch for miles.
There are still many parts of the city still showing damage after Katrina even 8 years on, such as boarded up windows and doors, and repairs and renovations are done as funds become available. The Louisiana Government explored ways to improve the inbound cashflow to the economy and one option was offering significant tax incentives for movies to be made here which turned out to be a highly attractive offering to Hollywood and Louisiana is now the most popular location for films being made in the USA (I know that's hard to believe but that's what the tour guide said). Recent movies (jut in the last 2 years) include:
Beautiful Creatures
Django Unchained
Contraband
The Expendables 2
Oblivion
Lee Daniels the Butler
Looper
The Paperboy
Broken City
and these were the ones I knew but are only about 10% of the total.
On the walking tour of the Garden District we saw John Goodman's and Sandra Bullock's houses which are only about 3 houses apart. Sandra Bulluck's house is across the street from the house used for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. While filming was going on, Brad Pitt stayed at Sandra's house - so he didn't have far to go to work.
Many actors that live in the city have helped out by putting on free performances (Harry Connick jnr), or simply donated money to the recovery fund to rebuild houses destroyed in the flooded areas. brad Pitt alone provided about 40 houses.
Mardi Gras is very big in New Orleans and there is a stop on the tour which makes floats 365 days a year, some of which are bookings for 2 years ahead. These floats are similar to Sydney's Mardi Gras and can be quite large.
In the cemetery, the actor Nicholas Cage already has his own crypt built and paid for. It's the pyramid shaped object below...and yes that's weird.
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