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Montreal Gazette March 23, 1999
Travolta alien flick to invade the city
Big-bucks sci-fi movie starts filming in July
Travolta chooses Montreal.
BRENDAN KELLYIt's official: Montreal will be John Travolta's next big-screen battlefield.
The producers of Battlefield Earth, a big-budget, science-fiction movie starring Travolta, have set up offices in Montreal in the past few days, preparing for the mammoth shoot, which will kick off in mid-July and run for about three months.
Montreal film commissioner Andre Lafond says Battlefield Earth has a budget of $120 million. Producers deny the budget is that high, but they declined yesterday to reveal the amount. There is no doubt, however, that the movie will be one of the most expensive motion pictures to be made in Montreal.
There has been speculation for weeks that the effects-laden adventure movie was due here this summer, gossip fueled by Travolta's quick visit in January to scout locations. But now the film-makers have hired local casting expert Andrea Kenyon to help find actors for Battlefield Earth, a task Kenyon describes as "a dream come true."
Lafond said Battlefield Earth will not only pump cash into the local economy, but will attract more Hollywood movies.
"There will be a Travolta effect," he said. "When projects come with big names, they establish a trend for shooting in Montreal."
In fact, the Travolta effect might already be working. Several more star-driven blockbusters are penciled in to film in Montreal between now and the end of the calendar year.
The film-makers behind Battlefield Earth also are preparing The Whole Nine Yards, an action-comedy about a hitman on the run starring Bruce Willis and directed by Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny). It will shoot from late May until the end of July.
The same producers also are contemplating sticking around after Battlefield Earth to make Ernie Popovich, a cop thriller with Sylvester Stallone. Also on the boards is a Wesley Snipes vehicle called The Art of War, again from the Battlefield Earth producers.
But Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based Don Carmody, who is producing all four films, cautions that the Stallone and Snipes movies could be filmed in Toronto.
Carmody, a graduate of Loyola High School, said he's waiting to see how things go with The Whole Nine Yards and Battlefield Earth before deciding where to produce the other two projects. There is talk Stallone, in turn, will make a racing-car drama in Montreal titled Formula 1.
In addition, U.S. producer Louis Stroller, who filmed The Bone Collector here last year and executive-produced Snake Eyes the year before, is due back in Montreal to make Pluto Nash, a Castle Rock/Warner Brothers sci-fi comedy starring Eddie Murphy as a guy living on the moon.
In short, 1999 is shaping up as the busiest year for Hollywood action in Montreal, no small feat, given that the city served as host for a record $694 million in production last year.
Battlefield Earth is based on the 1982 bestselling novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, but it is not a film about the controversial religion, of which Travolta is one of the best-known acolytes.
The story is set 8,000 years in future after the takeover of the planet by an alien race. These 3-metre-tall creatures are plundering the Earth for natural resources, and human slaves are all working in underground mines. Travolta plays the alien Terl, the nefarious head of security for the extraterrestrials. The other lead roles have yet to be cast.
The movie, expected to be chock-full of expensive special effects, will be directed by Roger Christian, who was the second-unit director on the upcoming Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace.
Christian was also part of the team that won an Oscar for art direction for the original Star Wars film. An independent production, the movie will be distributed by Warner Brothers in North America.
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