What are you doing Oscar night?
If you’re like a billion other people, including many in Monroe, GA, you’ll be watching the Oscars, Hollywood’s biggest night. Best Picture nominee “Hidden Figures” was partially filmed in the Walton County town last year, and was more than ready for its close-up.
Hollywood crews made over downtown to look like Langley, VA, in the 1960s.
“It was really pretty significant,” said Patrick Graham, publisher of The Walton Tribune, which had a small role in the movie. “It really made Monroe look tremendous. And “you could easily argue that it had an economic impact, especially from tourists.”
Businesses and the local
“There were people everywhere, and I mean everywhere, craning their necks to get a glimpse,” Graham wrote last year in The Walton Tribune. The visitors, cast and crew were “all spending money in Monroe.”
On Oscar night, locals will be tuning in and rooting for “Hidden Figures,” an underdog contender against “La La Land,” Graham said last week.
“Even if you don’t typically watch those kinds of shows, people will be watching locally because they have a connection to it,” he said. “Many would like to see the local film pull it off.”