Where Was Diarra from Detroit Filmed? (And Where the Cast Reunion Was)

Short answer: mostly not Detroit. Diarra from Detroit is a BET+ mystery-comedy set firmly in the Motor City, but creator Diarra Kilpatrick has said the first season filmed largely in New Jersey, with real Detroit footage cut in, and Season 2 reportedly shot in the Atlanta area. One piece of the show’s world, though, was made here: the cast reunion special was produced at L.A. Castle Studios in Burbank.

Here’s the full picture. Where the series itself shot, and how the reunion came together.

Where the series filmed

The show wears Detroit on its sleeve, but production mostly happened elsewhere. In press interviews around the Season 1 premiere, Kilpatrick was open about it: the series filmed in New Jersey, with towns like Secaucus, Moonachie, Newark and Paterson dressed to read as Detroit, plus genuine Detroit b-roll stitched in to sell the geography. For Season 2, casting notices placed production in the Atlanta area.

That’s a familiar story in television, a show set in one city, shot in whichever state’s stages and incentives make the budget work. It’s also exactly the problem virtual production exists to solve, but that’s a different post.

The part that was filmed at L.A. Castle Studios

When it came time to get the cast back in one room, that room was ours. The Diarra from Detroit cast reunion special, a talk-show-style aftershow produced for Paramount/BET+, was shot at L.A. Castle Studios in Burbank. You can watch it here: Diarra From Detroit in our video gallery.

To be clear about scope, because search results blur this: the series itself did not film at our studios. The reunion special was produced here. The sit-down where the cast reconnects on camera.

The set the cast sat on was one of our virtual talk-show sets: a photoreal environment rendered live and composited in camera in our Unreal Engine virtual production studio, using the CastleVision method we pioneered in 2007, now patented. The cast, the chairs and the foreground dressing were real; the environment around them was built to order, with no art department build and no strike day. What the cameras recorded is what aired.

Why reunion specials fit this format

Reunion and aftershow specials are a format we host regularly, and they share one production profile: a small window when the whole cast is available, a look that needs to feel designed for the show, and no appetite for building a physical set that lives for one taping day.

A virtual stage solves all three. The environment is ready when the talent walks in, it can echo the show’s world or brand the special its own way, and when the taping wraps, there’s nothing to tear down. It’s the same machinery behind the press junkets and host wrap segments we produce, different formats, same core advantage: the talent shows up, sits down inside a finished world, and the day is about performance instead of construction.

We’ve run the format for scripted casts, talk shows like Hart to Heart, and game-show productions for major networks. A reunion special is just the version where the audience already loves everyone on the couch.

Planning a reunion, aftershow, or cast special?

If you’re putting a cast back together, for a streamer, a network, or a release-window special, the fastest version of that day happens in a studio where the set is ready when the cast walks in. See our talk show sets, more true-crime recreations and reunion specials shot here, or tell us your dates and we’ll walk you through what the room can look like.