Before they’re swallowed by the Marvel wormhole yet again with Avengers: Doomsday, Joe and Anthony Russo continue to belt out big-budget action flicks for the small screen. Much like their 2022 action-thriller The Gray Man, The Electric State is a Netflix offering, albeit one with even more noughts on the budget.
What is The Electric State about?
The sci-fi-adventure-comedy boasts Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt as a duo driving through a reimagined ’90s America. In this alternate dystopia, robots have rejected slavery and rebelled against humanity, only to be banished to a desert prison – aka ‘the Electric State’.
Loosely inspired by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel, this futurescape is dust-caked like a Fallout game and radiantly awe-inducing like a Spielberg sci-fi.
Production designers Dennis Gassner (Blade Runner 2049) and Richard L Johnson (Pacific Rim) come up with a retro-futuristic style that’s both nostalgically Y2K-coded and disconcertingly Elon Musk-adjacent. While the film might stray away from Stålenhag’s darker designs, The Electric State builds a fluid and kaleidoscopic world that offers a Mr. Peanut robot, Ke Huy Quan fighting drones at a haunted house carnival, and metaverse landscapes resembling Windows XP wallpaper.
Despite the CGI-ness of it all, The Electric State did make use of real-world locations. Hop into Chris Pratt’s retro Volkswagen van and put on some ’90s tunes while we take a tour.Where was Electric State filmed?
The Russos started principal photography in October 2022 in Atlanta, only to halt a month later when an unnamed crew member died in an off-set car accident. The filming finally wrapped up in early February 2023. This was followed by a few reshoots in 2024 from March 20 to April 5.
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta served as the backdrop for most of the film’s suburban settings, reflecting a realistic world occasionally adorned with cyberpunk lights and towers. The Russo brothers are no stranger to the Georgia city, having previously filmed Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame at Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios and downtown areas.
Lake Acworth, Georgia
While Atlanta provided the suburban foundation, Lake Acworth offered a natural contrast for the film’s emotional flashbacks. The artificial beach harbours a white sand beach that appears in tragic flashback sequences. Millie Bobby Brown’s teenage heroine Michelle remembers running on the sand with her deceased brother Christopher (newcomer Woody Norman). It’s at the shore of Lake Ackworth where the siblings had some good, old outdoor fun. At least, until the whole robot takeover thing.
North DeKalb Mall, Georgia
As Michelle teams up with Chris Pratt’s long-haired soldier-turned-drifter Keats, they come across a robot colony in another geographic deep cut in Georgia. This is the North DeKalb Mall in North Decatur, a single-level shopping mall from 1965 that once housed 85 stores. With most of the mall demolished shortly after filming in the summer of 2024, only an off-price department store and an AMC multiplex remain. The mall’s dead and desolate ambiance is ideal for many apocalyptic scenarios. Zombieland: Double Tap, Loki, and Cobra Kai are some of the high-profile projects filmed at this spot.
The mall doubles as a robotic safe haven in The Electric State when the Woody Harrelson-voiced Mr Peanut unites the rusty survivors of the human-vs-robot war. While the mall offers some moments of peace, it bears witness to another high-stakes battle between Mr Peanut’s bots and their human oppressors.
Palmdale, California, USA
Many of The Electric State’s desert scenes were filmed in this Californian city on the western side of the Mojave Desert, previously home to Twin Peaks: The Return. (The local airport also briefly featured in Iron Man.) In The Electric State, Palmdale’s sun-soaked valleys and mountains backdrop Michelle and Keats’ journey to the eponymous robot zone.
Seattle, Washington
Filming also took place in Seattle, Washington, most notably for a climactic battle in an open field. Additionally, The Electric State also reimagines several global landmarks, seemingly with some CG trickery. For instance, archival footage depicts a human-robot war at Paris’s Arc de Triomphe while machine-controlling towers stand tall alongside the thematically-fitting Space Needle of Seattle, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, and Mumbai’s Gateway of India.
The Electric State lands on Netflix worldwide on Friday, March 14.
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