The Don CeSar is ready for its closeup, Mr. DeMille.
Director Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) will shoot scenes for the fact-based drama The Statement next week at St. Pete Beach’s opulent pink palace. The film’s stars, most of whom will be present, include Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, Evan Peters, Amy Ryan, John Tuturro and Tatiana Maslany.
Based on Nathaniel Rich’s book Losing Earth, the movie tells the story of 20 scientists who come together for the very first conference on the threat of global emissions to the climate.
That part is one hundred percent true. The conference took place in October 1980. At the Don CeSar.
Opting to shoot at the actual location, producer Jonathan Schwartz said Thursday, was a matter of “authenticity. If you can come to a place where the real thing happened, and the location and the Film Commission are accepting, and helping you realize the vision, then you would be foolish not to take up on it.”
Schwartz (Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy) and his production company have been working with Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, and Film Commissioner Dave Caputo, for months on bringing The Statement to Pinellas County.
They’ll be shooting exteriors at the Don Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Most of the interior scenes, Schwartz explained, are already in the can – filmed on a New Orleans soundstage.
The original plan was to shoot inside at the 98-year-old beach resort, too. “After the unfortunate weather circumstances here … the Don had a little bit of interior renovation after the hurricanes, and it didn’t have the period look we needed.”
The Don CeSar was the centerpiece of Robert Altman’s 1980 dramedy H.E.A.L.T.H., which to this day has never been made available on home video or streaming services, and served as a location for scenes in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Forever Mine (1999) and The Infiltrator (2016).
Schwartz speculated that the serious nature of The Statement might have been a draw for Rudd, who’s well-known for his comedic roles, although the final word on the movie’s tone, he stressed, will belong to director McCarthy.
“He’s the visionary behind how this is going to play out. When I’m sitting at the monitor (watching the shoot), there are definitely some intense moments. And there are some moments of levity, for sure.”
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are among the executive producers of The Statement.
Major film companies stopped spending weeks, or months in Florida after 2016, when the legislature ended its tax incentive program, which provided percentage-based rebates for motion picture production.
Florida, which had ranked third in the country for major film production, immediately dropped out of the Top 20.
This, Schwartz insisted, was not a deterrent for The Statement.
“To be honest, it was a numbers thing,” he said. “Tax credits are great if you quote-unquote need it to achieve the goal.”
He would not specify his film’s budget, not speculate on how much the production will bring to Pinellas County.
The film will receive some money through the county’s regional cash rebate program.
“If you don’t need all of it, and you just need some of it, you can make it work. And the Film Commission was so great about that, working with us to get the number we needed. Which was very modest, not millions of dollars.
“But giving us what we need to at least deliver to you guys, the people of St. Pete and Pinellas County. Getting some economic activity in the region, getting some people working. It was the perfect trade-off.”
Extras casting for next week’s shooting schedule is complete, although the production is still looking for 1970s-era cars to borrow, to populate the Don CeSar parking lots.
“When we’re budgeting our movies, we know what’s in the bucket,” Schwartz said. “And the bucket allows for X amount of picture vehicles. We search locally for everything, and we’ve come up with a good chunk of them.”
But not quite enough. “You put a flyer out that says you’re looking for 1970s cars. And the people that have them, that are proud to show them, are like ‘Here’s my Mustang.’ So you get a hundred Mustangs.
“So then you get ‘What’s going on at this hotel? Is it a Mustang convention?’”
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
