Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti filmed a movie in St. Pete Beach this past week, and they got a little help from the locals.<\/p>\n
A new feature film, \u201cThe Statement,\u201d shot at the Don CeSar on April 5-7.<\/p>\n
Academy Award winner Tom McCarthy (\u201cSpotlight,\u201d \u201c13 Reasons Why,\u201d \u201cStillwater\u201d) will direct the film. The project is based on \u201cLosing Earth: A Recent History,\u201d a 2019 nonfiction book from Nathaniel Rich. The movie will focus on a group of experts who descended on a Florida beach resort for a climate change conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe film itself takes place entirely at the Don CeSar. It\u2019s a story about a meeting that took place in October of 1980. It\u2019s a fictional adaptation of a nonfiction event,\u201d said Dave Caputo, film commissioner for the St. Pete-Clearwater Film Commission. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to replicate that type of property anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rudd (\u201cAnt-Man,\u201d \u201cClueless\u201d) and Giamatti (\u201cThe Holdovers,\u201d \u201cSideways\u201d) are joined by John Turturro (\u201cSeverance\u201d) and Evan Peters (\u201cAmerican Horror Story\u201d). Tatiana Maslany (\u201cOrphan Black\u201d), Jason Clarke (\u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d) and Amy Ryan (\u201cBirdman\u201d) round out the cast.<\/p>\n
Production transformed a former Dollar Tree at the Dolphin Village shopping center into its temporary headquarters. Racks of colorful 1970s and \u201980s pieces sourced from around the country filled the back of the room. Dozens of local extras streamed in to try them on.<\/p>\n
Since the inside of the Don CeSar has been modernized, interior shots were filmed at a sound stage in New Orleans, said producer Jonathan Schwartz. The film\u2019s production designer pored through \u201ctons of archive photos\u201d of the hotel to recreate what it used to look like.<\/p>\n
Capturing exterior shots at the Don CeSar was a must.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re standing there, shooting at the pool and at the beach, looking back at the hotel, it\u2019s like, \u2018Wow!\u2019,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to look like a postcard of heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n
A decade ago, Florida defunded statewide production incentives, making filming locally a less attractive option. Pinellas introduced new local incentives last fall \u2014 a move that Caputo hopes will bring even more exposure to the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the scale of this production sends a really good signal to the rest of the film community, which is that, number one, we have the support systems,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have the infrastructure to support a production of this scale. We have the talent and crews on location. And we have the diversity of locations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the new incentives were introduced, Pinellas has received a significant uptick in interest from film directors and reality television producers, Caputo said.<\/p>\n
The Tampa Bay Times recently visited the film set of \u201cChicken Head,\u201d an upcoming horror-comedy mockumentary from Corin Nemec, at Heritage Village in Largo.<\/p>\n
Past local projects of note include Ron Howard\u2019s 1985 film \u201cCocoon,\u201d a Derby Lane shoot for \u201cOcean\u2019s 11\u201d in 2001, raunchy flicks \u201cMagic Mike\u201d and \u201cSpring Breakers\u201d in 2012 and the \u201cDolphin Tale\u201d movies, which featured Morgan Freeman and filmed at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n
Auditions Database posted a casting call for paid background actors in St. Petersburg. The filming rate was $200 for 12 hours, with an additional $50 provided for time spent in fittings.<\/p>\n
The listing asked male applicants to note if they are willing to film clean shaven, grow out their hair or receive a 1980s haircut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti filmed a movie in St. Pete Beach this past week, and they got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[100601,100603,100602,596,202,2149,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-222054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-don-cesar","9":"tag-paul-giametti","10":"tag-paull-rudd","11":"tag-pinellas-county","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-beach","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}