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Percy Jackson director turned hurricane-hit disaster zone into movie theme park

The production of new action adventure movie Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters served as a major clean-up operation for one of New Orleans, Louisiana’s most beloved amusement parks after director Thor Freudenthal chose to turn The Six Flags Jazzland attraction into his Circeland on the island of Polyphemus. In order to film there, the moviemaker and his crew had to clear the theme park of alligators, snakes and debris which had been dumped there by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – and they did such a good job, locals thought the old place had re-opened.
He tells WENN, “When we first scouted the location there were a lot of alligators, snakes, brush that we didn’t want to set foot in, so, to be respectful to nature, we retrieved the alligators and levelled the grounds inside the rollercoaster, which looked like a rainforest.
“There were a lot of things to do to level it for the crew and actors to work there. Ironically, no one was hurt by alligators but everyone was bitten by mosquitoes! One of the crew actually caught a baby alligator which is something I’ve never seen before and he held it in his two hands, showing it to everyone. That thing didn’t bite but it snapped a little.
“The park is set outside of New Orleans in the middle of nowhere and there are not a lot of houses and neighbourhoods surrounding it, but when we lit it all up at night to shoot, people thought Jazzland was open again! At least we made good use of the place.”
His leading lady Alexandra Daddario admits she loved shooting at the abandoned park: “There were baby alligators running around and we found armadillos and a lot of bugs and snakes. It was cool to shoot there. It was swampland and it had been flooded and abandoned for years so it’s an incredibly creepy and cool place. I was really excited to shoot there, but I’m not enthusiastic about bugs or alligators.”

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