INSIDE — FINALLY

Considering all the instantly familiar Northeast Ohio spots featured in “Cherry,” you may be surprised to hear of one singled out by co-director Anthony Russo during a recent virtual roundtable interview.

“One of the locations I really appreciated was Baldwin Water Treatment Plant,” a facility in Cleveland’s University Circle/Fairfax neighborhood that dates to 1924 and that Russo remembers seeing from afar as a kid.

It is highlighted by a building with a very classical look. “I just remember as a kid always looking at this palace and wondering what it was and sort of wanting to access it,” says Russo, who made “Cherry” with his usual partner in filmmaking crime, his brother, Joe. “We actually used that watertreatment plant to stand in for the basic-training facility where Cherry goes off to train as (an Army) medic to go off to Iraq, so we finally got to get behind the gates and see what that place is all about.”

— Mark Meszoros

“And then you need to find an audience for that story. So the more opportunities there are for filmmakers to find an audience and for audiences to find movies, the better for us.”

That said, he predicts a big return to theaters down the line, citing recent box-office records being set in China.

“The audiences have come back and they’ve come back with a vengeance, and we expect that’s going to happen in the United States and elsewhere around the world the second we are all able to do that safely. Theatrical exhibition is going to remain vibrant and viable and growing, but the fact that streamers are available for those movies that may not fit the theatrical distribution model is an amazing thing.”