After Earth, despite being a futuristic movie, was filmed mostly on location in the United States and parts of Central America. The 2013 Hollywood blockbuster was directed by M. Night Shyamalan and co-written by him and Gary Whitta. After Earth was the first film to star Will Smith and his son, a young Jaden Smith, since 2007's The Pursuit of Happyness. Will Smith had planned sequels for After Earth, which did not come to fruition for many reasons, including the original movie's unfavorable reviews.
The story was partly developed by Will Smith and follows his character Cypher Raige and his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) stranded on a futuristic Earth following a crash landing. After Earth takes place 1000 years in the future where Earth has become inhabitable and humanity has moved to another planet called Nova Prime. The sci-fi film features several expansive landscapes of an abandoned Earth as Kitai traverses dangerous terrain in order to recover their rescue beacon to save his and his dad's lives. Here are all the places where After Earth was filmed.
6 Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Northern California
Parts of After Earth were shot in Roosevelt Forest in the Humboldt Redwoods National Park. The specific location is in Weott, California more than two hundred miles north of San Francisco. Production for After Earth took place here for less than a week. Only a certain amount of people were allowed on location at a time in order to maintain a peaceful environment for the area's native protected bird population. Filming could only be done during certain times as well in an effort to not disturb the birds' natural sleep cycles. The few scenes shot here in After Earth were used to portray the crash site where Cypher and Kitai first encounter the uninhabitable Earth, and where Kitai begins his journey to retrieve the beacon. The story mostly follows Katai, which is impressive considering how old Jaden Smith was in After Earth.
5 La Fortuna, San Carlos, Costa Rica
A large amount of the filming for the Will Smith sci-fi movie was shot in La Fortuna, a small town in Costa Rica that is north of San José, the capital of Costa Rica. La Fortuna is the home of the Arenal Volcano National Park. Many scenes featuring rainforests and volcanoes in were shot in and around the Arenal Volcano National Park. Jurassic Park also shot much of its footage in San Carlos. The landscape of the Arenal Volcano National Park was perfect for portraying Earth after it had regenerated itself, offering a combination of verdant vegetation and tropical trees alongside that charred damage from a volcanic eruption in the 1960s. This particular part of Costa Rica has been chosen for several other Hollywood productions including 1492, Spy Kids 2, and Congo.
4 Moab, Utah
Moab is a city in eastern Utah that features large red rock formations and provides an arid desert landscape to the film. It was the final filming location before the wrap of After Earth in 2012. This specific area was filmed to portray Nova Prime, the planet humanity traveled to once they fled Earth. The After Earth production team spent weeks planning the shoot before five full days of filming in both Grand and San Juan counties in Utah. Additional filming in the local area occurred at Fossil Point Trailhead and the Green River Overlook in Canyonlands National Park. Before the events on Earth in After Earth, Kitai trained to become a warrior here on Nova Prime, and his father Cypher was a general and war hero in a heroic battle against alien invaders.
3 Spaceport America, Sierra County, New Mexico
Some scenes were shot at Spaceport America in Sierra County, New Mexico and appear briefly in After Earth. Spaceport America hosted the press event for the premiere of After Earth as well. Spaceport America is the first-ever commercial spaceport built on Earth. It was designed and constructed to be a fully functional airport for spaceships in 2010, but is primarily a tourist attraction nowadays. Spaceport America was meant to bring a bustling space-inspired industry to Sierra County in New Mexico, but sadly that never happened. It still remains fully functional and is currently used by Virgin Galactic to test its line of new space vehicles and rockets. Despite After Earth having one of Will Smith's worst roles, the film was extremely hyped up and very well funded.
2 Sound Stages In Pennsylvania
Several prominent studios in Pennsylvania were used to film scenes on sound stages in After Earth. One of them was Sun Center Studios in Aston, Pennsylvania. Aston is a small town in southern Pennsylvania in between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware. Several recent blockbuster films have done filming there within the last decade, including Creed, Creed II, Split, The Upside, and 21 Bridges. Sun Center studios opened in 2011 and features 38,000 square feet of office space and three state-of-the-art sound stages which After Earth used to capture some scenes. In addition to the Sun Center Studios in Aston, other Pennsylvanian sound stages were used for After Earth's production as well, such as Budd Stages in Philadelphia. This is likely where the set for Cypher's home on Prime Nova was built and filmed.
1 Second Unit Filming In Switzerland & Iceland
Some additional second unit filming was done in Switzerland to capture mountainous terrain to be used for several key background shots. Some scenes feature the iconic Eiger mountain in Kanton Bern, Switzerland, which is considered one of the most dangerous mountains to climb in the world. Some scenes involving icy terrain with glaciers were shot in Iceland. The production team of After Earth sought out natural terrains around the world to convincingly portray an uninhabitable earth and a new futuristic planet that would be fit for humanity.
Original scouting began domestically in areas of Pennsylvania and Virginia, with an intention to capture some of the natural terrain of the Appalachian Mountains for part of After Earth. This also would have made it simpler and cheaper for After Earth's production team to film on location around their sound stages and studios in southern Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, the location scouting team was able to find great replacements in Switzerland, Iceland, Costa Rica, Utah, New Mexico, and Humboldt County in Northern California. All these locations combined make up the entire list of filming locations for the painful failure of After Earth.