When Hollywood production designer Nelson Coates had to create a high-rise penthouse for the handsome, fetishist, billionaire title character in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” films, the third of which was released last month, there was no question which Seattle building he would live in.
It had to be Escala, the real 31-story downtown Seattle high-rise that is named in the books and films. Mr. Coates carefully studied Escala’s floor plans and designed a set that re-created for the latest two films the best the building has to offer: 5,200-square-feet of space, floor-to-ceiling windows and sweeping views. The films introduce the building with a huge glowing rooftop sign. (That part is movie magic; no such sign exists.) A penthouse the size of the fictional Christian Grey’s sold for $8 million in November 2016.
On Oscar night March 4, there will be no award for “best building,” but maybe there ought to be. Hollywood has long been fascinated by skyscrapers, pitting them against monsters like “King Kong,” using them to signify modernism and post-war progress in “The Fountainhead,” and setting them alight in action movies like “The Towering Inferno” and “Die Hard.” These office buildings represented the apex of capitalism, ambition and hubris.
The love of filming in the air continues, but today cinematic skyscrapers increasingly play the role they do in real life, as the homes of the rich and powerful. And just like real-estate developers, filmmakers seem engaged in a race to place characters in ever bigger, taller and more luxurious high-rises.
By setting characters in real residential skyscrapers, film productions can trade on the real-life allure of these buildings, while adding elements on sets or in post-production that don’t exist.
“Her,” a 2013 science-fiction movie, shows a future world where luxury high-rise living is available to the middle class. Much of the action takes place in a penthouse in WaterMarke Tower, a 35-story building in increasingly trendy downtown Los Angeles.
“Tower Heist,” released in 2011, tells the story of a group of working stiffs exacting revenge on a rich swindler in a Manhattan high-rise that was modeled after Trump International Hotel & Tower on the edge of Columbus Circle.
For buildings, a starring role in a major movie can be a mixed bag, in terms of marketability and reputation. At Escala, which began selling its 270 condos in 2010, prices have nearly doubled since launching. Today, the smallest units—910-square-foot one-bedrooms—sell for about $850,000 and the largest penthouses, at 5,200-square-feet, have sold for $8 million. Yet, Erik Mehr, Escala’s sales and marketing director, said that while the movie “made the building very famous,” it might have turned off some buyers offended by its theme.
Prices at Escala soared because of the local market, not the movie, Mr. Mehr added. The median per-square-foot price for condominiums in the top fifth of the Seattle market rose by 57% between 2011 and 2017, according to Trulia, a real-estate website. Meanwhile, after the release of the first film, tour buses began driving by, pointing out the “Fifty Shades” building on the loudspeaker, which annoyed some residents. Young women gathered out front. One resident would offer to take pictures, then jokingly introduce himself as “Christian Grey,” the movie’s protagonist. Other homeowners are embarrassed by the attention, Mr. Mehr said.
By contrast, WaterMarke Tower, also completed in 2010, has benefited from appearing in the movie “Her,” as well as in at least 20 shows and productions, said general manager Chad Vazquez. Rents today range from $3,100 for an 826-square-foot one-bedroom to $16,500 for one of four 2,800-square-foot penthouses like the one used in “Her.” Through fees it charges productions, the building earns $100,000 to $200,000 a year, Mr. Vazquez said.
Jason Jones, president of location-services company Key Locos, was impressed enough with the two-bedroom unit in “Her” to sign an annual lease last summer for “just under $15,000 a month,” he said. But his goal wasn’t to imitate the lifestyle of the apartment’s celluloid resident, played by actor Joaquin Phoenix. Instead, he was intrigued by its value as a film location, he said.
After signing the lease and buying furniture, Mr. Jones and a business partner “just about broke even” in 2017 by renting the penthouse to a television show, a production company filming a commercial, an independent film and other shoots.
“When it is vacant, I can use it to entertain clients. It also gives me a place to stay when I’m downtown,” he said.
Sales at Trump International, which has 158 units on floors 23 through 52, slumped between 2015 and 2017. Prices per square foot were down 18.5%, based on five condo sales in 2015 and two in 2017, according to CityRealty, a New York City real-estate website. Today, 23 units in the building are listed for sale, from a studio for $999,000 to a 4,415-square-foot, three-bedroom unit listed for $30 million, said CityRealty. Eric Trump, executive vice president development and acquisition for the Trump Organization, cautions that the sales figures are misleading because of the small sampling of sales in the data.
With the building’s developer now president of the U.S., there are factors beyond a Hollywood movie affecting the marketability of the building. It is the site of occasional protests. There also has been a softening in the luxury condo market in Manhattan: The median per-square-foot price for condominiums in the top fifth of the market fell 2.4% between 2015 and 2017, after several years of dramatic increases, according to Trulia.
Filming on location in high-rise buildings is notoriously difficult, expensive, and can annoy a lot of people, said J.J. Levine, a location manager in Los Angeles and the vice president of the Location Managers Guild International. Frequently, location managers rent two or more apartments in a building—one for filming and others for extra talent and crew, equipment and a “video village,” which is a set of monitors the director, producer and other crew watch during filming. Location services, such as Mr. Jones’ company, draft agreements intended to protect property owners in case of damages, he said.
Then there are the neighbors. Mr. Jones said he sometimes gives neighbors bothered by late-night filming $500 to $1,000, and occasionally rents out his neighbor’s penthouse for $5,000 a day when a production needs extra space.
Another problem with filming in actual high-rises is continuity: keeping the same weather in window views, for example. So, while Escala was in all three of the “Fifty Shades” movies, almost nothing was filmed there. The penthouse at the center of the action was created on sound stages in Vancouver, said Mr. Coates. Likewise, the Trump International—called “the Tower” in “Tower Heist”—was recreated on sets in Brooklyn, said Kristi Zea, the production designer, whose credits also include “The Departed” and “Silence of the Lambs.”
In July, Universal Pictures will release “Skyscraper,” an action film starring Dwayne Johnson. The plot revolves around an inferno in a 225-story “super-luxury” building in Hong Kong, said writer and director Rawson Marshall Thurber.
The entirely imaginary building has “a driving range, three cinemas, world-class shopping and a 30-story vertical park at its center. The whole building has a negative carbon footprint,” Mr. Rawson said with enthusiasm akin to a typical developer.
Write to Katy McLaughlin at katy.mclaughlin@wsj.com