Reel News
Prime isle film location
sites are filling upSome of Oahu's favorite film and television locations are filling up. Three productions heading to Oahu next month are scrambling to lock down locations: the Fox TV pilot "The Break," a possible season opener of "E.R.," and Columbia's "Fifty First Kisses," starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.
The Sandler-Barrymore movie, which has set up production shop at the Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki, is shooting all the film's exteriors in Hawaii, with interiors in Los Angeles. The film will use Kualoa Ranch, where a restaurant exterior will be filmed; a private residence where Barrymore's character lives; and Sea Life Park, where Sandler's character works. The park will be made to look like a marine park in California, where the production was able to film walruses.
One home "somewhere between Honolulu and Kualoa" was reportedly rejected by Sandler and Barrymore in favor of another home along a very narrow -- and logistically difficult -- road.
The production has reserved a portion of the Hawaii Film Studio. The old "Five-0" stage will be used as a construction mill set, beginning March 31, and the new sound stage as an overall cover set beginning in April ...
Meanwhile, the "ER" production crew begins renting the studio's ancient bungalows at the end of March.
The popular NBC series, which starts filming on Oahu for about three weeks, is also interested in shooting at Kualoa Ranch and Waialua. Hawaii once again is subbing for Africa, in this case the Congo, which means a lot of local African-American extras will be hired. A peek at the script reveals that a civil war breaks out while a doctor is just replacing a departing physician in the Congo.
There's a close call at the end in several very touching scenes written by the show's creator and director John Wells ...
The Hawaii Film Office, including county film commissioners, will hold their annual Film Day at Signature Dole Cannery on Wednesday, March 12, with a special preview screening of the Bruce Willis film "Tears of the Sun," which was filmed here last year. The event is mainly to introduce legislators -- and hopefully Gov. Lingle -- to the local film industry and to answer any questions.
This is a particularly bright time for Hawaii's film industry. Last year's 2002 production revenues -- according to my figures -- will reach nearly $140 million, topping the previous record of $136 million, set in 2000.
Reel News unspools every Wednesday.
Contact Tim Ryan at tryan@starbulletin.com.