[Watch] Fly-Thru ‘Amazon Studios Atlanta’ Video Gets Published, Quickly Removed

Social media over the weekend was abuzz with the possibility of a new movie studio in Atlanta after an in-depth fly-through entitled “Amazon Studios, Atlanta” was published to Vimeo Friday. Onyx Creative, an architecture, engineering, urban design, interior design, and branding design firm with offices coast to coast, created and published the detailed renders.

Commercial real estate and urban planning enthusiast Chris Bender was first to spot the video, posting a link to Twitter prompting What Now Atlanta (WNA) to reach out to Onyx Creative’s Atlanta office. Javier Santos, the company’s managing architect for the southeast region, told WNA over the telephone that the video was a spec project for a developer as an idea for how a studio — or similar use — could be incorporated into an Atlanta site. Santos would not disclose the site or developer but said Amazon Studios was not involved in the video project.

It’s not unusual for a developer to commission such a video as a marketing tool for prospecting tenants and potential uses for their land or property, but Bender isn’t buying Santos’ comments. “So they just used their free time to develop a fly thru architecture video for a mock Amazon Movie Studio, Atlanta and post [it] to Vimeo with that label?,” Bender tweeted in response to a tweet from Bisnow Reporter Jarred Schenke who also spoke to Santos. “It’s just a what-if in general,” Santos told Schenke. “It’s an exercise in creativity.”

Shortly after speaking with Santos, the video was removed from Vimeo. In anticipation that Onyx might take down the video or remove it from public view (it was likely published for public consumption in error), WNA saved a copy which is included below. Amazon over the weekend did not immediately respond to a request for comment.