New Year's Eve is coming, and many people like to rewatch, for example, Harry Potter in the run-up to the holidays. Many of our favorite films, if not devoted to the topic of education, show interesting private schools, universities or colleges, especially if they are in the form of fairy-tale old castles with Victorian interiors! Today we will show you 7 universities whose campuses have become film sets.
One Day: University of Edinburgh
The author of the novel on which the film was based, David Nichols, fell in love with Edinburgh at first sight, so he decided to develop the romantic story of his book against the background of the University of Edinburgh. It turned out very beautifully!
"The Avengers" and "Good Will Hunting": Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Well, to be fair, it's not exactly "The Avengers" — it was at MIT, according to the comics, that Tony Stark, Iron Man, studied, who at the age of 19 was able to graduate with a master's degree in physics and electrical engineering. In 2019, MIT students even placed a "Captain America" flag on the roof of the main building! Well, you almost guessed right with the character, you think...
Another film that was shot in the local corridors was the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting. The ingenious janitor, who was entrusted only to wash the floors in this citadel of knowledge, showed his talents as an outstanding mathematician, quickly outpacing the local doctors of science.
Harry Potter: University of Oxford, Christ Church College
The most famous boarding school in Great Britain (albeit fictional) was largely copied from Oxford colleges. In particular, many crowd scenes, all the events in the Great Dining Hall, the Yule Ball were filmed in Christ Church. The legendary Bodleian Library was rented as the Hogwarts Library, and the hospital where Harry repaired his fracture with the Bonestone actually serves as the theological department of the Bodleian Library. Fans quickly recognized another place - Professor Flitwick's office: classrooms of the famous Harrow School were used for it.
Stephen Hawking's Universe: University of Cambridge
The scientist himself really spent his youth in Cambridge: there he learned his sad diagnosis, there he began to fight it, there he began to climb to the heights of physics and fame. He even managed to teach mathematics here for a while! It is logical that they decided to shoot the film in the real alma mater of the famous physicist.
Monsters University: Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford , and MIT
The creators of this cartoon did not take a specific university, but were inspired by several campuses at once and drew their own Monsters University in their image and likeness.
Legally Blonde: University of California
Yes, in the film, Reese Witherspoon's character studies at Harvard, but in fact, the film was shot at two universities: the University of Los Angeles and the California Tech University (CalTech). Fanfact: In this comedy, you can find a lot of documentary footage, in which ordinary students of these universities go about their usual everyday business.
"Ghostbusters": Boston University
We're talking about the latest, modern film from 2016. Boston University was chosen for its Gothic campus, which perfectly matched the atmosphere of the film. It is noteworthy that this building is not used for the study of local students: receptions and dinner parties are held in it, it is rented out, and it is allowed to shoot films, earning money for the university fund (for example, to pay scholarships).
