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Todd Phillips’ first narrative feature film, “Road Trip,” was released in 2000 as a raunchy comedy. Although it was successful, the film had unforeseen consequences on the University of Georgia (UGA). The explicit nature of the film led UGA to ban filming on campus for 20 years.
“Road Trip” puts Josh (Breckin Meyer) and his friends on an 1,800-mile road trip to retrieve an embarrassing videotape that was meant for his girlfriend but was accidentally sent to her. While the film was set in the northeastern United States, it was filmed largely in the South, specifically in areas around Atlanta, Cumming, and Lawrenceville, Georgia.
UGA was a friendly place for filmmakers during the time of filming. Joel Harber, Athena Studios’ President and CEO, reported, “They were like, ‘Yeah, sure, shoot anywhere. If you want to get into the stadium, you want to do this.’ They were all over the place.” But when the movie came out, the university administration was unhappy with how college life was presented, so they shut down future productions on campus. Harber explained, “The administration came out with the movie and of course they weren’t altogether happy about this. So essentially they put in an iron fence and said, ‘You cannot come here any more.’”
Fast-forward to today’s years, and efforts have been made to restore this relationship. Athena Studios, a state-of-the-art studio in Athens, Georgia, has been at the forefront of doing so. The studio’s 45-acre campus offers over 350,000 square feet of space for TV and film production.
In 2024, Athena Studios hosted Blumhouse Productions’ “The Woman in the Yard,” a film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Danielle Deadwyler. The production was the studio’s first major one, with filming starting mid-April and ending in May. The production also included UGA MFA Film students, providing them with hands-on experience.
Harber indicated the shifting cooperation with UGA, stating, “We’ve been attempting to relax that relationship with UGA. And then have some of that filming basically getting the students involved. So that’s what’s happening now.”
The removal of the filming moratorium and opening of Athena Studios symbolize a new era of cooperation between film and the University of Georgia, providing both the entertainment and academic arenas.
