Silverado set construction Although the ranch had appeared in a few movie scenes as early as 1970, it "became a very important movie location in 1984 when a
western town was built as the primary setting for
Lawrence Kasdan's
Silverado". Lawrence and
Mark Kasdan and their crew scouted a remote area of New Mexico by helicopter, hoping to find the most suitable place to build the town of Silverado. The location manager appeared at the Cook property. At that time the filmmakers wanted to build only two to three structures, offering Cook a "casual number" as a location fee. "There wasn't any great motivation for me one way or another, but I said okay. It just grew from that into a big budget movie and the
Silverado set was built", Cook recalled. The set was appropriately dressed and filmed for towns in four different states, depending on the view from the streets—mountains or prairie or the
Galisteo River. The primary private area built during this effort added "an ultramodern main residence" designed by Ando and built by Marmol Radziner, The main residence is "an extraordinarily long, land-hugging ultra-minimalist concrete and glass pavilion that appears to float on a shallow, lake-sized reflecting pool". along with additional staff residences, warehouse facilities, and an
airstrip and
hangar. After filming concluded, the owners of the Cerro Pelon Ranch petitioned to keep the $2 million expansion, which was initially supposed to be dismantled within 90 days. At that time, sets constructed for
3:10 to Yuma made up 75% of the overall sets on the ranch. In April 2007, the county's development review committee granted the request to keep the expansion, which would potentially generate revenue in the future. Although most film productions at the ranch have been traditional westerns, 2011 saw the filming of a comic book movie, the
Marvel Cinematic Universe film
Thor. for which director
Ti West explained that Western movie sets "kind of get cannibalized — another movie will come in and knock down buildings and put up a new church". The property was sold to an unnamed buyer in 2021. ==Films and TV programs==