Film production industry in city is solid as a Rock
There is no shortage of A-list talent in town right now with seven feature films currently shooting in Vancouver.
The biggest star in our midst — both literally and figuratively — is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The world’s highest-paid actor, who earned $64.5 million in 2016, started filming his latest, Skyscraper, Aug. 14 in Vancouver.
Co-starring Neve Campbell, the movie is billed as an action-thriller about a skyscraper security expert who must rescue his family from a burning building in China.
The writer/director on Skyscraper is Rawson Marshall Thurber, whose previous films include the zany comedies Dodgeball, We’re The Millers and Central Intelligence, which also starred The Rock, so we can probably expect a few laughs between the gunshots and explosions.
Production on Skyscraper is expected to wrap on Nov. 17. It is scheduled to hit theatres on July 13, 2018.
Hollywood legend Robert Zemeckis, whose resume includes a string of classics like Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Romancing the Stone, Cast Away, Flight and the Back To Future franchise, is in Vancouver directing a star-studded adaptation of Jeff Malmberg ’s 2010 documentary Marwencol.
Marwencol told the story of Mark Hogancamp who, after suffering brain damage during an attack, sought recovery by immersing himself in a 1/6-scale Second World War-era town that he created in his backyard.
The movie stars Steve Carell (The Office), Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Leslie Mann (Knocked Up), Janelle Monae (Moonlight) and Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds).
Deadpool 2, which shut down for two days following the Aug. 14 stunt death of motorcycle rider Joi “S.J.” Harrison, is back in full production.
On Sunday, crews tied up Granville Bridge to shoot a scene involving a huge military-type vehicle, a helicopter and giant inflatable panda.
On Monday, Reynolds received a set visit from Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, who posted a photo to Twitter while boasting about the B.C. film industry.
“Thanks to productions like (Deadpool), Vancouver is a third largest film and TV production centre in North America,” wrote Sajjan, a former detective-constable with the Vancouver police gang crime unit. “B.C.’s world class film and TV studios support 42,000 jobs for British Columbians and investments of over $2 billion per year in our economy.”
Mel Gibson, who was photographed Saturday enjoying The Fair at the PNE with his 11-yearold daughter, was spotted downtown Sunday starring in the gritty police drama Dragged Across Concrete with Vince Vaughn.
Gibson and Vaughn play two disgraced cops who descend into the criminal underworld.
Writer-director S. Craig Zahler, who made the brilliant and gory western Bone Tomahawk, filmed a sequence with Gibson and Vaughn driving a getaway vehicle following a failed bank robbery.
Curious fans along Pender Street — between Granville and Seymour — snapped photos of the action despite being aggressively discouraged from doing so by members of the film crew.
Dragged Across Concrete, which is shooting under the production name X-Mas Bear, will be filming scenes Tuesday and Wednesday at The Permanent building at 330 W Pender St.
Production on the science-fiction feature Freaks, written and directed by Vancouver-based duo Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, is expected to wrap its four-week shoot on Friday.
The low-budget film boasts a talented cast with Grace Park, Emile Hirsch and two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern.