‘The Umbrella Academy’ starts shooting final season with visit to Burlington
Local indoor playground shop provides location for popular Netflix show
A Burlington business has the distinction of being one of the first locations for “The Umbrella Academy” as it begins shooting its final season in the Hamilton and Toronto area.
Lil’ Monkeys Indoor Playground Inc. opened its doors to Netflix’s massively popular and quirky sci-fi superhero show last week.
The show began filming its fourth season at the Harvester Road and Cumberland Avenue business — one of the largest indoor playgrounds in southern Ontario — on Monday, Feb. 6, and wrapped up Friday.
Crew parking was at the Burlington Mall and the lunch area was at the nearby Polish Community Centre. The program also began filming in Toronto.
Filming for the show is set to end in May. The building that fronts for the academy for the Hargreeves, a dysfunctional family of seven superhero siblings, is a former bank/ restaurant/strip club at 54 King St. E. in downtown Hamilton.
What awaits the family in the final season is anyone’s guess.
At the end of the third season, after time was reset — again — some of the siblings lost their power and some disappeared. The siblings had already existed in 1963, and saved the world from an apocalypse.
But the deceit of their father Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), who adopted the seven after a strange birth cycle in 1989, is exposed. All the babies were born with superpowers. It was all part of a plan to reunite himself with his dead wife Abigail, which he succeeded in doing in the last episode.
Writer Stewart Blackman, who co-wrote the first episode of the final season with Jesse McKeown, posted on social media the name of the episode — “The Unbearable Tragedy of Getting What You Want.”
“The Umbrella Academy” has been filming in Hamilton since 2018 and, not only is it one of Netflix’s most popular shows, it has been a big boon to Ontario’s film industry.
The Ontario government said last year the filming of its second season before the pandemic in 2020 poured $77 million into the province’s economy.
The show filmed in Hamilton at such places as Gore Park, Gage Park, Hamilton City Hall, Liuna Station, Ottawa Street North, Corktown Pub, The Cotton Factory and Dyment’s Country Bakery and Farm Market in Flamborough.
Season 3 of the show — filmed from February-May 2021 — was one of the streaming services top 10 shows for five weeks after the show dropped in June 2022.
Also returning to the show are Elliot Page, who plays Viktor, Tom Hopper (Luther), Emmy RaverLampman (Allison), Robert Sheehan (Klaus), Justin H. Min (Ben) and Rita Arya (Lila Pitts). Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation” and “The Last of Us”) and his wife Megan Mullally (“Will and Grace”) are reported to be joining the cast as a small town mayor and conspiracy theorist, respectively.
The previous seasons each consisted of 10 episodes, but the fourth is reported to total only six.
The Hamilton-filmed romantic movies filmed under the umbrella “The Love Club” are now running on the W Network.
The four movies, shot last summer across the city, are also running on Hallmark Movies Now in the United States.
“The Love Club” involved four women who meet at a college New Year’s Eve party while each are dealing with a dating debacle. They vow to help each other in any future romantic troubles, and they all call on each other 10 years later when they each face a love crossroads.
The four women are played by Brittany Bristow, Lily Gao, Chantel Riley and Camille Stopps.
The W Network is running each movie on Friday at 8 p.m. “The Love Club: Nicole” ran last Friday. Running tonight (Feb. 17) is “The Love Club: Sydney”; Feb. 24, is “The Love Club: Lauren”; March 3 is “The Love Club: Tara.”
The films were shot at such places as Gage Park, The Aberdeen Tavern and homes and businesses on James Street South, Rebecca Street and Ottawa Street North.