CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — According to a recent list compiled by a team at USDISH, the highest grossing movie that was ever filmed in West Virginia was J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 from 2011.

The film managed to gross a total of $127 million in box office earnings over its lifespan, but such a pull only managed to place West Virginia at 45 on the list compared to the movies representing the other states.

While the movie was filmed in Weirton, W.Va., and surrounding areas, the events of the movie itself take place in the fictional town of Lillian, OH.

The list was created using IMDb to find a list of movies with the highest gross box office revenue in the U.S. However, the revenue was not adjusted for inflation.

Then with the help of movie-locations.com and latlong.net, the filming locations for each of the highest-grossing movies was found. To qualify, each film had to have at least one scene filmed in the state.

Other Findings

  • The 5 highest-grossing movies by state included not one, but two titles from the Marvel Avengers franchise—Endgame ($858.4M) and Spider-Man: No Way Home ($720.9M).
  • Also among the top 5 highest-grossing movies were Avatar ($760.5M) and Titanic ($659.3M), both directed by James Cameron and released 12 and 24 years ago, respectively.
    • Avatar is also the highest-grossing movie of all time internationally, according to Box Office Mojo by IMDb Pro.
  • Despite being the home of Hollywood, California came behind Georgia, Hawaii, and New York in box office revenue for its highest-grossing movie.
  • The film with median box office earnings was the action-superhero movie Logan ($226.3M), which was filmed in North Dakota.
  • Only 3 of the highest-grossing movies by state earned less than $100M at the box office:
    • Public Enemies ($97.1M), made in Wisconsin
    • Burlesque ($39.4M), made in Iowa
    • Downsizing ($24.4M), made in Nebraska
  • The average box office earnings for America’s highest-grossing movies is $286.1M.
  • The average “age” of the highest-grossing movies by state is 16 years, with a hypothetical release year of 2005.