Where was Coming 2 America filmed? The Zamunda Palace House & all the Locations

33 years later, Eddie Murphy comes back to the story of the charming prince of Zamunda. This time, the sequel of the classic 1988 comedy directed by John Landis is set in the prosperous African nation.

However, Coming 2 America was entirely filmed in and around Atlanta, Georgia. American hip-hop star and producer Rick Ross' mansion doubled as the Zamundan Palace.

Eddie Murphy plays up to four different roles: Prince Akeem Joffer, soul singer Randy Watson, Clarence (the owner of the barbershop), and the Jewish barbershop customer.

On the other hand, Arsenio Hall reprises his role as Semmi but also plays the ancient shaman Baba, Reverend Brown, and the second barber, Morris.

The film feels a bit like a party movie, filled with music, gags, and peculiar characters in sumptuous costumes as if the plot didn't really matter. Now let's dig a bit deeper into the stunning manor and the Coming 2 America filming locations:

The point is that the design of the palace had to be loyal to the original image of the 1988 movie, Coming to America, which looked like this.

It really seems out of the One Thousand and One Nights tale. The ZNN CNN also highlighted that the filmmakers' vision of Zamunda was kind of like the way people viewed Marvel's Wakanda.

However, like in the superhero movie, no actual filming took place in the African continent.

Located in Woolsey (Fayetteville County), just about 18 miles away south of Atlanta downtown, the opulent villa is considered the biggest single-family home in Georgia.

Containing more than 350,000 gallons, the swimming-pool is considered one of the largest private pools in the whole country.

The property even has a lake! In an interview with the New York Times, Eddie Murphy said that the house is so insanely large that they literally were able to dress it and make it look like a palace. They just expected to see antelopes running in the backyard of the mansion.

The exact address is 794 Evander Holyfield Highway (here is the link in Google Maps).

Some numbers: In 2014, Ross bought the property to former professional boxer Evander Holyfield at an auction for $5.8 million, where the starting price was $2.5.

The real market price could be as high as $8 million. Built back in 1994, Holyfield once reported that operating the estate cost him about $1 million per year. Only electricity bills came in at around $17,000!

Featured on shows like Drop Dead Diva and the 2018 Superfly movie, this megalomaniac structure boasts 12 bedroom suites (several of them appearing in Coming 2 America), 21 baths, and a total of 109 rooms.

The complex includes an indoor pool, a movie theater, a bowling alley, and the dining room seats up to 100 people.

It looks like the guy had foresight: Holyfield, now aged 58, has 12 kids from six different mommas. On the other hand, Ross, aged 45, has only four children.

Architectural Digest revealed that production designer Jefferson Sage created both worlds, the fictional country of Zamunda and the urban New York City sets.

The crew made the royal family paintings and also acquired some African art pieces from a merchant in Paris.

The funeral, coronation party, and wedding scenes were filmed in the large ballroom of the mansion, redecorated depending on the occasion.

The set of My-T-Sharp Barber Shop was filmed at the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.

Like if it was stopped in time, the barbershop was painstakingly recreated from the '80s movie. The producers even found the original chairs from the first film at a rental house in Los Angeles.

The original barbershop in Queens was located at 392 South 5th Street and Hooper Street in Brooklyn (Google Maps).

The exteriors of the barbershop and the Church of the Joly Jubilation (in the movie located at 373 Hendricks Avenue, Elmhurst) were also recorded at the studios.

Some further filming took place at the Areu Bros. Studios in Atlanta.

The all-star cast includes Jermaine Fowler as Lavelle Junson (Akeem's bastard son), Leslie Jones as Mary (Lavelle's mother), Tracy Morgan as Reem (the American uncle), KiKi Layne as Princess Meeka, James Earl Jones as King Jaffe Joffer, Bella Murphy as Princess Omma, Wesley Snipes as General Izzi (from the next door militaristic nation, Nextdoria), and Teyana Taylor as his daughter Bopoto Izzi. Plus the cameos of Morgan Freeman, Davido, En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa, Gladys Knight, and Dikembe Mutombo.

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