In honor of the film’s 40th anniversary, the town of Jonesboro, Georgia, will be hosting a “Smokey & the Bandit” festival that will culminate in a stunt driver trying to recreate the infamous “Bandit Jump.”
The Smokey and the Bandit 40th Anniversary Festival will be held in Lee Street Park on Saturday, June 24, from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. The festival will include several events, but without a doubt the most highly anticipated event will be a recreation of the “Bandit Jump.”
A group of professional stuntmen led by organizer Oliver Keller will be making the bridge jump “just a few feet away” from the site of the original jump filmed 40 years ago. There will be photo ops with the stunt car and some may even be treated to a ride — pre-jump, of course. All proceeds from the Bandit Jump will go to the charity groups Disabled American Veterans and the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film and Theatre.
Find out more about the Bandit Jump event here.
Burt Reynolds will be on hand to witness the historic jump and will also be available on a limited basis for photos and autographs. From the Bandit Jump website: “Mr. Reynolds saw this as a perfect way to celebrate alongside his lifelong fan base and wanted to make sure the primary beneficiary of the event was DAV.”
The Bandit Jump will be made possibly by coordination with the groups “Bandit Run” and “Snowman’s Run“.
You can learn more by checking out the event’s Facebook page here. So far, nearly 900 people say that they are going to the festival.
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