Vampire Bats Mention
Frank von Zerneck, who is producing "Vampire," said it would be at least a week before his production could resume what would have been its last week of shooting.
"Everyone is safe," von Zerneck said, "but now I'm dealing with things like, are the trucks flooded? Where is the equipment? Everything was boxed up and stored, but now the city is pretty much closed down."
When the evacuation began, the "Vampire" producers and transportation manager found they had limited options in evacuating cast and crew; flights were unavailable, and efforts to rent a bus were unsuccessful. The film's runner
went to the airport with the last day's worth of film but, failing to get a flight, holed up in a hotel north of New Orleans. Much of the rest of the company had rental cars and headed to Houston and Dallas.
Lawless and producer Jill Tanner set out for Texas by car, but it took them nine hours to get to Baton Rouge, where they were taken in by the relatives of crew members. Echoing one of the great fictional heroines of New Orleans,
Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois, Lawless said, "We are relying on the kindness of strangers."
Added Tanner, despite being without power in the section of Baton Rouge where they were staying, "We are happy to be here."
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Hurricane Katrina swooped over Florida and slammed into Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Monday, shuttering movie theaters and disrupting filming.
Much of the cast and crew of Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Reaping" -- a Joel Silver production starring Hilary Swank, which had been headquartered in Baton Rouge, La. -- evacuated to hotels in Austin on Sunday. Swank returned to
her home in New York. Meanwhile, key personnel from the CBS telefilm "Vampire Bats," starring Lucy Lawless, which had been filming in New Orleans, considered themselves lucky just to have made it as far as Baton Rouge, where
they were taken in by residents.
By contrast, Katrina's impact on filming in Florida, which it passed over as a Category 1 hurricane late last week, was less disruptive. Universal Pictures' "Miami Vice," directed by Michael Mann and starring Colin Farrell and
Jamie Foxx, shut down Thursday and Friday but resumed shooting Monday.
Louisiana, which has been aggressively courting film productions, was hosting at least three TV and film shoots in the state as the monster storm, which had threatened to hit land as a fearsome Category 5, approached. The
Governor's Office of Film and Television -- located in Harahan, outside of New Orleans -- was not answering calls Monday.
When New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation over the weekend, Element Films suspended production on its comedy "The Last Time," starring Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser, and immediately left the area.
"We are monitoring the situation in Louisiana and assessing our options," Element president Adam Rosenfelt said Monday. "We expect to resume and complete production as quickly as possible."
A Warners spokesperson said "The Reaping" hopes to return to New Orleans on Wednesday and resume filming Thursday, even though the production suffered what was said to be minor set damage. But that may prove challenging because,
as one source on the production said, "Flights, electricity, manpower, car rental -- there are going to be massive infrastructure problems."
Frank von Zerneck, who is producing "Vampire," said it would be at least a week before his production could resume what would have been its last week of shooting. "Everyone is safe," von Zerneck said, "but now I'm dealing
with things like, are the trucks flooded? Where is the equipment? Everything was boxed up and stored, but now the city is pretty much closed down."
When the evacuation began, the "Vampire" producers and transportation manager found they had limited options in evacuating cast and crew; flights were unavailable, and efforts to rent a bus were unsuccessful. The film's runner
went to the airport with the last day's worth of film but, failing to get a flight, holed up in a hotel north of New Orleans. Much of the rest of the company had rental cars and headed to Houston and Dallas.
Lawless and producer Jill Tanner set out for Texas by car, but it took them nine hours to get to Baton Rouge, where they were taken in by the relatives of crew members. Echoing one of the great fictional heroines of New Orleans,
Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois, Lawless said, "We are relying on the kindness of strangers."
Added Tanner, despite being without power in the section of Baton Rouge where they were staying, "We are happy to be here."
When "Miami Vice" resumed filming Monday, it encountered minor damage on one set where trees fell on a trailer park. Mann noted that the production had time to prepare and decided to shut down Thursday because city services were
redirected elsewhere and "we wanted to be sure our Florida crew could get home and take care of their families."
Mann, who has been living in Miami since February, initially planned to ride out the storm in his house. When the power went out, he moved to a hotel, where he kept himself busy rewriting and prepping for the remainder of the
shoot, which continues for four more weeks in Miami before moving to the Dominican Republic.
The storm's impact on the exhibition community was more difficult to assess Monday.
According to Dick Westerling, spokesman for Regal Entertainment Group -- which operates 10 theaters in Mississippi, 11 in Louisiana and seven in Alabama -- the chain closed all its buildings in Katrina's path. By Monday, the
company had yet to assess potential damage, but Westerling said it had heard reports of flooding in Biloxi and Hattiesburg, Miss., where it has theaters.
According to AMC spokesperson Melanie Bell, all of AMC's associates were evacuated from the New Orleans area, and the circuit had not received much information in the aftermath of the storm Monday. AMC operates five theaters in
Louisiana and Alabama. Said Bell, "Right now our thoughts are with the people who have been affected by this natural disaster."
Cobb Theatres found itself dealing with power problems throughout the weekend, president Bobby Cobb said, explaining that if blackouts shut down projectors, the film in the machine can break. The chain, based in Birmingham,
Ala., closed its theater in the Dolphin Mall in Miami on Friday night and reopened it Saturday. Cobb closed its theater in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Sunday and Monday as part of a mandatory evacuation but hoped to reopen it today.
O'Neil Theatres, based in Slidell, La., northeast of New Orleans, operates theaters in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. The corporate offices could not be reached Monday. Southern Theatres, the Louisiana-based theater chain
run by George Solomon, also could not be reached. Solomon, the former CEO of Gulf States Theatres, a family-owned theater chain that sold to AMC Entertainment in 2002, has theaters in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.