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HBO Movie Featuring Kevin Bacon to Film in Bozeman, Ennis
By: Camden Easterling
Publication: Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Date: July 25, 2007
Bozeman, Ennis and Virginia City will play host to actor Kevin Bacon and HBO Films this summer as the backdrop for the film “Taking Chance.”
The film recounts the experiences of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl of the U.S. Marine Corps as he escorts home to Dubois, Wyo., the body of Chance Phelps, a 19-year-old Marine killed in Iraq.
The movie is based on the short story that Strobl, whom Bacon will portray, wrote about the trip.
In mid August, HBO Films will spend about eight days in the state, with the crew spending about half of the time in Ennis and the rest split between Bozeman and Virginia City, estimated Sten Iversen, manager of the Montana Film Office of the Montana Department of Commerce.
Although Phelps was from Dubois, a town with a population of about 960, Montana will fulfill the needed shots of the West, according to the film office.
“In this kind of show, you want it to be similar, but it's not really that important to the story line,” Markus Zetler, a Bozeman consultant hired as the film's location manager, said of the Montana-Wyoming swap. “It needs to be scenic, but in this case it's about a Marine taking this young man home.”
Locations slated to be featured in the film include the Gallatin Field airport and the cemetery in Virginia City.
They're also expected to use Ennis' Main Street for a funeral procession scene, said Pamela Kimmey, director of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce.
“It's going to have a positive impact on the economy, from the restaurants to lodging,” Kimmey said.
Iversen said the production will pump at least $1 million into the state, “which is a pretty significant amount for eight days.”
“It's a fairly large budget film,” he said, although he did not hazard to guess a figure.
The remainder of the film, already in production, will be shot in New Jersey, Iversen said.
He credits Montana's Big Sky on the Big Screen act with enticing HBO to film in Montana rather than another western state. The legislation offers filmmakers a 14 percent rebate on all labor hired within the state and a 9 percent rebate on local expenses such as lodging and equipment rental.
Bozeman and Livingston last summer were the backdrop for the family film “A Plumm Summer,” yet to be released in theaters.
The 1998 movie “The Patriot” with Steven Seagal featured Ennis.
“It was a great positive impact on the whole town,” Kimmey said of that movie. “It kind of pulled the community together too.”
As for Iversen's office, the news that HBO plans to use Montana as a temporary base for the Strobl film has generated plenty of interest from other production companies interested considering the state for their own projects.
“We're swamped,” he said of the phone lines in his office that have been steadily ringing.
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