Hold onto your girlfriends, gentlemen.Leonardo DiCaprio is definitely coming to town.
The Herald has confirmed that the award-winning actor, who recently split from Supermodel Bar Rafaeli, will be in and around Calgary and the Kananaskis later this year to film director Christopher Nolan's latest movie, Inception.
The big-budget picture, which is a contemporary science fiction action movie set "within the architecture of the mind," is also filming in a variety of locations around the world, including Tokyo, London, Paris, Tangiers and Los Angeles, according to Warner Bros. Local film industry insiders say DiCaprio and principle cast and crew members will work in Alberta for a short period of time, probably less than two weeks.
While DiCaprio, a 34-year-old environmental activist and Hollywood hottie, heads the cast as Jacob Hastley the list of supporting actors reads like a Who's Who of the red carpet. It includes Academy Award winners Marion Cotillard (La vie en rose) and Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules), as well as Oscar nominees Ellen Page (Juno), Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai) and Tom Berenger (Platoon). In addition, there are such well-known actors as Cillian Murphy of Batman Begins, Tom Hardy of RocknRolla and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, currently starring in (500) Days of Summer.
Although the arrival of the film's star-studded cast and crew is still a few months away, construction in the Kananaskis will begin later this month. The set will require a large building that will employ a large number of construction workers and carpenters, and will undoubtedly benefit local lumber yards, which will supply materials. Private and public roads as well as a bridge that are already in disrepair around the site will reportedly be fixed at the expense of the filmmakers and left for future use.
Local crew members, however, who are struggling through another slow season in Alberta filmmaking will take little comfort in Inception.
It's great to have a high profile movie like this coming here because it might help entice more business," says film industry veteran John Scott, who is not working on the film. "As far as the local industry is concerned this is great news for the carpenters and the lumber yards, but it is a short term bandage for a long term problem."
A restrictive and noncompetitive tax incentive program is being blamed for the industry's trouble. According to ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, Alberta members are working more than 70 per cent less than they were just a year ago. The number of days spent filming for ACTRA members to the end of June 2009 is just 141, while the comparable number to the end of June 2008 is 532.
Still, a Christopher Nolan feature film is an exciting prospect for movie fans in the province. The director first garnered worldwide attention in 2000 with the psychological thriller Memento, and since then he has been credited with the successful re-branding of the Batman franchise with the The Dark Knight. That film, starring Heath Ledger, grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide.
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