The post-movie payoff

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So what’s the greatest payoff for the community that hosts a filmmaker? Tourists who just don’t quit.

Dyersville, Iowa, is the hometown of “Field of Dreams,” an ‘80’s baseball movie starring Kevin Costner.

Although it’s been 20 years since the film was shot in a Dyersville cornfield, Chamber of Commerce employee Bette Kuboushek said folks still make pilgrimages to the spot.

“There’s people here every day in the summertime,” Kuboushek said. “During the winter, I’m sure there’s still two or three people a week that want to go out and just look at the field.”

Tammy Ellwanger, executive director of the Madison County Chamber of Commerce, said she sees the same thing.

“The Bridges of Madison County,” starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, was filmed there in 1994. Tourists from across the nation stop by daily to ask for directions to the movie’s famous bridges, she said.

“Last month alone we had over 1,400 visitors,” Ellwanger said. “The first thing they want to see about the county is the bridges.”