How Bushwick battled an invasion from Texas
‘WHO f--king invades Bushwick?”
Most people would answer: “hipsters.” But that question comes straight out of a new action movie called “Bushwick,” out Friday, which depicts a largescale military invasion of the hot Brooklyn nabe — by Texas.
Wait. Who makes an action movie about Bushwick?
“I lived in Bushwick for about five or six years about 10 years ago,” Cary Murnion, the film’s codirector, tells The Post. “I thought [the people] just had a great spirit, and if there was something that went down, if they were invaded, they’d fight back.”
And fight back they do. In the movie, actors Dave Bautista and Brittany Snow bound around the actual neighborhood — stocking up on supplies in a bodega (Edward’s Grocery & Deli), seek- ing refuge in a school (IS 162, the Willoughby School) and dodging bullets on bona fide Bushwick streets.
“Ninety-five percent of the movie was filmed within these five blocks,” Murnion says.
For eagle-eyed New York movie lovers, such authenticity is refreshing, especially following NYC-set big-budget hits such as “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which was mostly filmed in Atlanta.
With Bushwick getting its share of gentrification, the filmmakers made sure to include the area’s many sides. “We wanted to show the part that’s being hipsterized and show the real part of Bushwick,” says Murnion.
And the setting had to be legit, because the indie filmmakers planned for the movie to look like it was filmed in a single shot — so it appears to audiences that the camera never stops rolling and the action takes place in real time.
“One of the first things Cary did was make a Google map and say, ‘We come out of this subway stop, then to this apartment, then to this school,’ ” says co-director Jonathan Milott. “When we were developing this idea, we didn’t think there was any possible way to follow this idea of a map.” Thanks to a crafty location scout, the duo got their wish.
Another reason for choosing Bushwick: Old-school military logic.
“Bushwick actually makes sense strategically,” says Murnion. “If you were going to try to invade New York City, you wouldn’t go into the heart of Manhattan ... you’d start from places where you think you can put down your forces, make a strategic win, then gradually move into the more dense areas.”
To create that occupied, dystopian “war zone,” the team transformed the familiar environs with frightening armed soldiers, bombings and bodies strewn just about everywhere. Did the locals, arriv- ing home to discover rifle-toting militias, freak out?
“We pamphleted the area, and we were hoping nothing would happen,” says Murnion. “Because we would have these guys in black suits going down the streets with guns. We were trying to be as careful as we can, but we were expecting something possibly to go down,” he says about concerns that residents would be afraid. “But nothing did.” “People seemed to embrace it.” Murnion and Milott hope audiences will embrace their message, too.
“It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when people take up weapons and arms about things they disagree about,” Murnion says. “No matter what side you’re on, when there’s violence involved, things can go really bad.”