Naman Shrestha
With Paul Feig occupying the director’s chair, Amazon Prime’s ‘Jackpot’ stars Awkwafina as a struggling actress named Katie in 2030 trying her best to make a name for herself in the industry. While she chases fame and money through her acting, she luckily and instantly gets both by winning the Grand Lottery ticket. However, there is one dangerous catch of winning the multi-billion dollar jackpot — anyone with a losing ticket can claim the prize by murdering the winner before sundown. Thus, in order to retain the jackpot and prevent herself from getting killed, she takes aid from Noel, an amateur lottery protection agent.
Apart from Noel, there is another protection agent named Louis Lewis, Noel’s rival, hellbent on protecting Katie until sundown and claiming a significant portion of her jackpot as his commission. Besides Awkwafina, the action comedy movie also stars John Cena and Simu Liu, bringing their hilarity and well-timed comedy to the action-packed chase. The fast-paced narrative is punctuated by the constantly changing backdrops as Katie and Noel dodge deadly attacks from almost everyone around them.
Where Was Jackpot Filmed?
Taking over various streets and neighborhoods of Atlanta, Georgia, the production team of ‘Jackpot’ filmed almost the entirety of the movie on location. Beginning in March 2023 under the working title ‘Grand Death Lotto,’ the principal photography got wrapped up in about a couple of months, in late April of the same year. One of the key cast members, Awkwafina, took to social media and shared, “And it’s a wrap on @granddeathlotto!!! Huge thanks to our amazing cast and crew, led by the great @awkwafina and @johncena. It was such a fun shoot. And much love to Atlanta for being our home. I had the best time ever!!! Get ready for the Grand Lottery!!!”
Atlanta, Georgia
Despite ‘Jackpot’ being set in a futuristic California, the filming unit set up camp in the capital of Georgia — Atlanta. Thanks to the vast and versatile areas in and around the Gate City, the director and his team found it seemingly easy to make it stand in for the western state. While several outdoor scenes were lensed on location, a handful of indoor portions were supposedly taped on a sound stage of one of the film studios situated in Atlanta. Besides ‘Jackpot,’ the city has served as a prominent production location for a number of projects, including ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon,’ ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,’ and ‘Stranger Things.’
Talking about the pace of the shooting process, John Cena, who portrays Noel, told Screen Rant, “It was a fast process. The shoot was fast, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, because we fell into a rhythm and routine rather quickly. Awkwafina’s style of comedy is fantastic, and I think the script played to those strengths. And, likewise, it allowed me to create a more patient buffer to kind of use my strengths. So, right away, we were able to set an environment where we were comfortable with each other being ourselves. And I think that’s important.” He also revealed that he himself performed a majority of the stunts as most of them were right in his wheelhouse.
In an interview with Filmfare, Awkwafina was asked to talk about the action scenes in ‘Jackpot’ in detail. She gave due credit to the stunt team director, James Young, and her stunt double, Kiera O’Connor, while admitting that she had to get work on her physique to perform a few action sequences in the film. When asked about her favorite action scene in the film during a conversation with Manila Bulletin, she said, “I think my favorite action scene is the first scene like when you get thrown through a yoga studio and then through like the dojo (place of training) and whatnot. That was really fun to shoot, and it felt like really collaborative. We had an amazing stunt team so they all felt like family at that point.”
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