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Arts & Entertainment

Hollywood coming to Smyrna

Howard's Restaurant to be site of filming for "Joyful Noise'' later this month.

Two queens are coming to Smyrna.

Yes, the queen of country music, Dolly Parton, and the queen of hip hop, Queen Latifah, will be at in less than two weeks filming a segment for their upcoming movie, “Joyful Noise.”

The film, which has a January 2012 tentative release date, is being produced by the same company that produced the huge hit “The Blind Side."

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The film centers on characters played by Parton and Latifah in a power struggle to determine who is better suited to run a church choir. Their characters will be involved in a food fight that will be filmed at the Smyrna landmark restaurant on Feb. 28.

Howard’s Restaurant is owned by Bobby and Sandra Martin and has been a city mainstay since 1964. The restaurant will be closed for several days - Feb. 25, 26, 28 and March 1 – due to filming, and several Howard’s employees are signed up to be extras, as is Smyrna Mayor Max Bacon.

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While this will be the first time Howard’s has been used for a Hollywood film, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners hopes it won’t be the last time producers seek out Smyrna and the surrounding area to shoot. Last week, the Board voted to submit an application to become a Camera Ready Community, a special designation reserved for Georgia counties that want to attract film and TV production.

“It is a way to streamline the ability to respond to production companies that might be looking at the state for "an antebellum house and a swamp," said Craig Dominey, a program manager for the Georgia Film, Music & Digital Entertainment Office.

The film office is able to type in keywords, and various spots in Georgia will pop up with pictures to be sent to location scouts. The program started last year with 16 counties, including Carroll, DeKalb and Fulton. Some counties, though, were working with the film office before the official program, Dominey said.

Seventy more counties have since applied for the camera ready designation, and an announcement concerning those applications will be made in the next month or so, he said.

During the hard economic times that are hitting governments across the state, the financial boost that production crews can bring to an area can only be a plus, Tim Lee, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, said at a recent meeting.

The estimated economic impact of the film and television industries on the state last year was $1.33 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2009, according to the film office.

With the camera ready designation, a person is designated by each county to head up dealings with film and television officials. Cobb hasn’t officially appointed anyone yet, said Terrilyn Hannah, the county's economic development coordinator.

Cobb is working on getting a film permit in place and contacting its six cities for help in compiling locations for shooting.

Hannah said she wasn't sure how long it would take to get Cobb's camera ready application submitted.

For years the state had an unofficial way of helping film crews select location sites in the state. But with a vast database at the film office’s fingertips, the process has been much easier, Dominey said.

“We’ve had stuff come in,” he said of site locations submitted by counties, “that I never even knew was out there.” 

- Patch's Holly Roberson contributed to this story.

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