New York Shoots: Summer ’08

1. MOTHERHOOD
Permits to shoot through June 7.
Stars: Uma Thurman, Minnie Driver, Anthony Edwards.
Locations Include: West Village.
Along with Manhattan shoots—including director Katherine Dieckmann’s block— this comedy about a mother (Thurman) organizing a daughter’s birthday is also using the little-known East of Hollywood soundstages in Sunset Park.

2. UNTITLED NICOLE HOLOFCENER PROJECT
Through June 13.
Stars: Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, Rebecca Hall.
Locations Include: Chelsea, Lower East Side (alongside Economy Candy!), Ditmas Park.
Holofcener’s first film shot entirely in New York since 1996’s Walking and Talking concerns a family that wants to expand its two-bedroom but must wait for the cranky old lady in the apartment next door to die.

3. THE REBOUND
Through June 20.
Stars: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Justin Bartha.
Locations Include: West Village (near corner of Charles and Bleecker), Long Island City.
For this romantic comedy, in which Zeta-Jones plays a recently divorced mom who moves from the suburbs to an apartment right above Bartha’s coffee shop, the production wanted, in the words of producer Tim Perell, “an intimate small-town feel in the midst of a big city.”

4. WHEN IN ROME
Through June 28.
Stars: Kristen Bell, Anjelica Huston, Josh Duhamel, Will Arnett.
Locations Include: Guggenheim Museum, Central Park.
Bell plays a young curator chased by lovers after taking coins from a Roman fountain. So far, the film has been allowed to shoot in the real Guggenheim, even utilizing a Cai Guo-Qiang installation.

5. TAKING OF PELHAM 123
Through July.
Stars: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini.
Locations Include: The subway.
One of the most authentic films about the transit system gets remade, with Washington as the MTA hero facing off against subway hijackers. It’s been shooting all over the city, including at Brooklyn’s Hoyt-Schermerhorn stop.

6. BROOKLYN’S FINEST
Through July 11.
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Don Cheadle, Richard Gere.
Locations Include: Brownsville.
Written by a former transit worker, this drama about Brooklyn cops, which some have likened to The Wire, is shooting in housing projects.

7. VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE
Through July 21.
Stars: Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Thewlis, Erika Christensen.
Locations Include: West Yonkers.
For this U.S. relocation of Paulo Coelho’s Slovenia-set novel about a woman who attempts suicide only to discover she has days to live, production has converted a beautiful mansion along the banks of the Hudson into a mental institution.

8. CITY ISLAND
July 14 through August 30.
Stars: Andy Garcia, Alan Arkin, Emily Mortimer.
Locations Include: City Island.
This drama about a prison guard who discovers his long-lost son among his new inmates is described as “a valentine to Manhattan as it appears to the ‘bridge and tunnel’ crowd.”

9. THE TESTED
August.Stars: Frank Vincent (The Sopranos), Nathan Corbett (The Wire), Jadakiss.
Locations Include: Lower East Side, Gramercy, Brooklyn Heights, Bensonhurst.
This film follows how a high-profile shooting affects three lives.

10. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2
August.
Stars: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Amy Adams.
Locations Include: Remains to be seen.
The sequel hopes to do for D.C.’s Smithsonian what the first film did for our Natural History museum, but production will be returning to the city briefly. The original cost more than $100 million, so chances are, when this production rolls around, you’ll notice.

*NB: Some shoot dates are tentative, especially for films that haven’t started production yet.

New York Shoots: Summer ’08