Fluff Piece: The Hollywood Invasion

Written November, 2002.

            Lately, our city has become the temporary home to many of Hollywood's biggest and brightest. With the likes of John Travolta, George Clooney, Katie Holmes, and Bruce Willis gracing our streets, it seems like this is a good time to be living in Montreal.

            With low production costs and cheaper currency, Montreal has become the premier location for movie shoots. Is all this attention from Hollywood really something Montreal wants though?

            We may be the source of many new movies, but so far, none of them have given us a reason to be proud. With terrible films like Snake Eyes, The Jackal, The Whole Nine Yards and The Score being filmed in our city, it doesn't exactly make us want to brag. And who could forget Battlefield Earth? Probably lots of people, considering those who actually saw the film were likely so traumatized that they were forced to repress the memory. Travolta's take on the L. Ron Hubbard book lost more than 50 million dollars at the box office.

            Montreal also has the reputation of being the city where Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie separated. Is this the sort of place we want Montreal to become? A place where movie stars can go on a bender when they're away from home? We have enough of that sort of thing without the movie stars.

            The glamour of Hollywood stars roaming our streets is also somewhat muted by the fact that their trailers block some of the busiest streets in Montreal. When sitting in traffic for hours on end, one easily forgets the anticipation of possibly getting a glimpse of some actor or actress.

            Montreal is a great city, but it has yet to produce a great Hollywood movie. Unless some quality features are produced soon, we may want to salvage as much of our dignity and city as we can and force moviemakers to film somewhere else.

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