Filming Locations of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Part 1

The Actual Southern California Locations where 2003's
"Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" was filmed.

However, later in the same scene, when the Terminatrix appears at the cemetery
(disguised as the Kate's fiancé), and begins chasing them, you may notice that the
rolling hills of the cemetery have suddenly become flat land. That's because they are
no longer at Rose Hills. Look carefully, and you'll notice that there aren't many flat grave
markers on the grass in the distance...

They moved the filming of that scene 16 miles south, to a park in northeast Long Beach.
It's called El Dorado Regional Park, and is located at 2800 N Studebaker Road,
in Long Beach, CA. But few people noticed the switch.

They simply they put up a few fake headstones on the park grass to make the park look like a
cemetery, then ran the bullet-ridden hearse over the grass (and the headstones)... something
they probably wouldn't have liked at the real Rose Hills... They shot the scenes in the
northern part of the large park, north of Spring Street.

But once they flee the "cemetery", and are speeding away in the bullet-ridden hearse, they
are suddenly in Griffith Park, 30 miles away from Long Beach. Griffith Park is the largest city
park in the United States, and scene of a zillion Hollywood movies. It's here that the Terminatrix
pursues them on foot, and jumps on the roof of the hearse, and it is here that Arnold drives
the hearse under a truck and rips off the roof. The mountainous park is bordered by Glendale
on the east, by Universal City on the west, by Burbank on the north, and by the Los Feliz
section of Los Angeles on the south. It's address is 4730 Crystal Springs Drive.

(However, once they pull the hearse off the road, and arrive at a park campground,
the location shifts once again, 60 miles away to a canyon somewhere in the Antelope Valley.)

As for the final confrontation at the SkyNet HQ, most of those
scenes were shot on a large set, specially built inside the site of
the old Rockwell/Boeing/NASA Defense Plant, in Downey, CA.
That parcel (now-empty again) is bordered by Bellflower Blvd on the east,
Lakewood Blvd on the west, Imperial Highway on the south
and Stewart & Gray Road on the north.

(The same location was used for "Spider-Man".)

Some of the photos on this page are stills from the DVD of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines"
(which you can buy by clicking here) and are copyright Warner Brothers Pictures.