The drama that takes place on Roatan each day deserves a movie of its own. Every day there are road and boating accidents, landslides, and fishing drama. If not that, the island could certainly serve as a backdrop for well known and beloved Hollywood classics.
According to Frank Martin, a Hollywood producer who has made Roatan his home, the island has plenty to offer as far as far as movie reshoot locations go. Roatan is picturesque and unforgettable, albeit still a little known place. It certainly has plenty of unusual, stunning, and full-of-character locations. Here are my top eight picks for movie ideas.1. The Shining – Brick Bay Hotel.
2. The Island of Dr. Moreau – Morat Island.
The Island of Morat lies just east of Santa Helena and is the only uninhibited island in the Bay Islands archipelago. It is also full of crocodiles – and, as some islanders swear – duppies, or lost island spirits. It is certainly worthy of a movie setting, if not the subject of a movie itself.
The one movie that could be filmed here is a remake of the science fiction horror film The Island of Dr. Moreau. The 1996 movie featured some of the best actors of the time in Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. Yet in the end, the movie became famous not for its quality, but for its legendary production hell, perhaps the most troubled and difficult in Hollywood history. Morat islands, with its duppies, crocodiles, and Honduran legal challenges, could definitely prove a worthy match for the remake of this movie.
3. The Blue Lagoon – Marbella Beach.
This 1980 coming-of-age Brook Shields classic was filmed on an island near Fiji. While The Return to the Blue Lagoon was a dud, The Blue Lagoon III could surely be a hit. It could star actress Kiernan Shipka and take place on Marbella Beach, which is as unspoiled as it ever was. The development of this property has stalled for over a decade and remains one of the island’s last true gems. This north-shore beach is one of the prettiest spots on the entire island, period. The film crew and actors could stay at the soon-to-be-built Margaritaville Resort, just a few hundred meters from Marbella.
Legal challenges, could definitely prove a worthy match.
4. Captain Ron – Fantasy Island.
Roatan’s West End already has a famous Captain Ron, one of its long-time iconic resident. So the remake of the 1991 comedy about a Chicago family traveling to the fictional island of Pomme de Terre to claim a 60 foot yacht would be that much easier to make. The remake could be filmed on Roatan’s Fantasy Island, where many yachts come to spend the autumn months. Fantasy Island sports a great bar not unlike the one featured in the original movie.
5. Lost city of the Mayas – Neverstain Bight.
While a feature film has not yet been made about the abandoned city of “Ciudad Blanca,” it is certainly on some Hollywood producer’s lists. Filming the movie somewhere in Mosquito Coast is a possibility, but why travel that far? The legendary settlement is said to be located somewhere in the Mosquito Coast, but it was once inhabited by Paya Indians when Roatan was a Paya territory. If a Hollywood producer ever undertakes a movie about Honduras’ legendary Ciudad Blanca, they might as well film it on Roatan.
Neverstain Bight would be a great filming location, as it boasts an abandoned resort with a multitude of unfinished, concrete structures that are overgrown with trees and bush. The entire site resembles an abandoned city. This unrealized fantasy began in 2006 when a young Honduran developer broke ground on a project of two-story condos and 40 hillside homes. Westin Hotel was the intended manager of the site, but like most failed developments on Roatan, it is now owned by Banco Atlántida.
Paya called their lost “Ciudad Blanca” Kahã Kamasa, and American aviator Charles Lindbergh once spotted it while flying over eastern Honduras in the 1920s. It was given the name “white city” because the buildings and walls that surround it are white. This would fit the look already achieved by concrete cinderblocks that were used to build the city’s outer walls.
6. The Ghost Writer – Barbareta.
The Ghost Writer is a movie about an eccentric millionaire politician who gets caught up in a political scandal (like practically every millionaire does, apparently). The Ghost Writer takes place on a secluded private property in Martha’s Vineyard, but since director Roman Polanski has an ongoing legal case in the US, the movie was shot in Germany. Barbareta is unlikely to resemble Martha’s Vineyard, but it comes with its own billionaire who’s not a stranger to political debacles.
It boasts an abandoned resort with a multitude of unfinished, concrete structures.
7. Cast Away II – Swan Islands.
If the Honduran government doesn’t get its way and the prison on the Swan Islands isn’t built, the little archipelago could serve as a great location for a survival movie. The one that instantly comes to mind is Cast Away, the Robert Zemeckis film about a FedEx executive who crash lands on a Pacific island and spends four years living like a modern Robinson Crusoe. Big Swan Island, the larger of the two Swan Islands, would make a great site for a remake of this classic. As I write this, about a half-dozen Honduran soldiers are surviving on very little on the Swan Islands. Just so happens to be that the Swan Islands fall under the Roatan Municipality jurisdiction.
8. Mutiny on the Bounty – Crawfish Rock.
The Ghost Writer is a movie about an eccentric millionaire politician who gets caught up in a political scandal (like practically every millionaire does, apparently). The Ghost Writer takes place on a secluded private property in Martha’s Vineyard, but since director Roman Polanski has an ongoing legal case in the US, the movie was shot in Germany. Barbareta is unlikely to resemble Martha’s Vineyard, but it comes with its own billionaire who’s not a stranger to political debacles.
