Wallace Giddy Over Film Prospect $2.5 Million Bonanza Possible If Movie About Volcano Is Filmed In Silver Valley
It’s not a done deal, but the prospect of a movie being filmed in Wallace this summer has Silver Valley business owners gleeful.
Already, a few production workers have arrived in Wallace to locate supplies and scope out motel rooms for a potential horde of workers.
“It’s a crazy business; things could change, but it does appear to be moving forward,” said Peg Crist, film specialist with the Idaho Department of Commerce. “Set construction people are arriving in town; they’re taking office space.”
“We have not received anything yet that absolutely confirms this (filming),” said Jim Hays, executive director of the Silver Valley Economic Development Corp. “But they are madly spending money up here already.”
Set builders recently visited Building Maintenance and Supply in Wallace to look at the store’s lumber supply, Hays said.
“They looked at it and said, ‘That’s about a 10-day supply of lumber,”’ Hays said. “The hardware stores will do a land-office business.”
If the movie is approved, he said, “I have heard that they’re going to be dropping about $2-1/2 million in this valley.”
The Universal Pictures film is about a volcano erupting above a small town. Crist said much of the movie will be filmed in Los Angeles with miniature sets and computer animation.
Actor Pierce Brosnan, who played James Bond in last November’s film “Goldeneye,” verbally has agreed to star in the film, Crist said.
Wallace interested filmmakers because the picturesque town is located in a narrow valley ringed by mountains, she said. The movie would be shot from mid-May through mid-August.
Efforts to contact producer Ilona Herzberg were unsuccessful. A Universal Studios location manager in Wallace declined to comment.
“Everyone around here is getting really excited,” said Jeannie Turnbow, manager of Wallace’s Ryan Hotel. “They told us that it’s expected to fill up all the motels here in the valley.”
Some business owners were afraid to talk much about the movie, saying the crew had threatened to pull out if there was too much publicity.
“They just came unglued,” said one business owner who asked not to be named. “They’re talking to the locals as if everyone knows everything, but they don’t want it out to the press. Hell hath no fury like the movie people scorned.”
Movie crews last worked in Wallace in 1979 when the town was the backdrop for Michael Cimino’s notorious bomb “Heaven’s Gate.” That time, film crews left behind $500,000 to $750,000.
Crist said the only other recent filming in Idaho occurred last fall when a film crew went into the Sawtooth Mountains with a bunch of Clydesdale horses.
In the $3 million commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl, the horses kicked a football and played the game while a couple of cowboys looked on.
, DataTimes