'The Lone Ranger' rides again in New Mexico

The masked vigilante is back in the saddle. After suspending production last summer over budgetary concerns, Walt Disney Studios started rolling the cameras on “The Lone Ranger,” starring Johnny Depp, in New Mexico this week.

“They’re doing studio soundstage work through March and then location work around the state after that,” said New Mexico Film Office director Nick Maniatis.

The film will shoot in Albuquerque Studios, in the Rio Puerco Valley, and near Silver City while in New Mexico. Filming will also take place in Arizona, Utah and Colorado, according to a statement from Disney.

The revival of "The Lone Ranger" comes at a welcome time for New Mexico, which saw a sharp falloff in film activity last year when the future of its tax incentive program was thrown into question (the state kept its 25% film tax rebate, but imposed a funding cap on the program).  Sony Pictures Imageworks announced this week that it would close its visual effects unit in Albuquerque in part because of the decline in film production in the state.

A retelling of the popular 1950s television western series, "The Lone Ranger" stars Armie Hammer as the western hero and Depp as his Native American sidekick, Tonto. The movie is scheduled to be released in theaters on May 31, 2013.

Production was originally scheduled to start in October, but in August Disney shelved the film until producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski found a way to trim the budget to around $210 million from an estimated $250 million to $275 million.

Set construction near Silver City came to a stop and workers were laid off due to the halt. Crew members are now glad to be back at work, said Jon Hendry, business agent for Local 480 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents crew members in New Mexico.

“I estimate 350 to 400 [New Mexicans] are working on the film,” Hendry said. “We're happy they're hiring New Mexicans."

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Photo: John Hart played the Masked Man during part of "The Lone Ranger's" television run in the 1950s (Clayton Moore starred in most episodes) and Jay Silverheels played Tonto. Credit: Boyd Magers collection

Sony Pictures Imageworks to close New Mexico visual effects office

Sony Pictures Imageworks, one of Hollywood's leading visual effects companies, will close a satellite office in New Mexico this summer.

About 30 employees -- who worked on such big-budget films as "I Am Legend," "Green Lantern" and "Men in Black 3" -- were told this week that Sony would not renew the lease on its Albuquerque facility after it expires in July.

A spokesman for Sony Pictures Imageworks declined to elaborate on the reasons for the closure. The workers will be offered jobs at other Sony facilities, including those in Vancouver, Canada, and in Culver City, where the Sony Pictures Entertainment movie and television studio is based.

Sony opened the New Mexico effects office in 2007, moving more than 100 jobs from Culver City to a new studio in Albuquerque to take advantage of the state's generous film tax rebate, which at the time made New Mexico a major hub for production and arch rival to California.

But the facility suffered from a falloff in film activity in recent years, triggered in part by uncertainty over the future of New Mexico's film tax credit. Sony also had difficulty recruiting artists willing to move to Albuquerque, people familiar with the matter said. 

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Photo: A scene from the "Green Lantern," a Warner Bros. Pictures movie. Sony's visual effects facility in New Mexico worked on the film. Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures 

 

On Location: Raleigh Studios looks to expand into Utah

Raleigh Studios, the nation's largest independent studio facilities operator, is continuing to expand its reach across the country with plans to open a studio in Utah even as its sprawling new production complex in Michigan struggles to find tenants.

The Hollywood-based company, which already manages soundstages in Louisiana, Georgia and Budapest, Hungary, as well as closer to home in Playa Vista and Manhattan Beach -- where its A-list renter is James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment -- is working with a developer to build a $100-million-plus studio in Park City, Utah, home of the Sundance Film Festival.

The proposed 374,000-square-foot project would include three 15,000-square-foot soundstages and a recording studio as well as several restaurants, shops and a hotel with up to 100 rooms, according to plans submitted to the city and county.

Raleigh is seeking to capitalize on steps by Utah to sweeten its film incentives. The state, which has hosted shooting for the upcoming, big-budget Disney release “John Carter,” recently increased its tax rebate from 20% to 25% of in-state production expenses.

Raleigh also wants to capture some business from the Sundance Film Festival, the nation’s most prominent independent film festival, held every January, primarily in Park City. The festival is run by  Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute.

“It’s a great way to extend our brand to the independent market," said Michael Newport, Raleigh's manager of marketing and client development. “We can help them out by providing them with the facilities that they can use.”

The project cleared a big hurdle in January when developer Greg Ericksen settled a long-running legal dispute with Summit County. Local officials had raised objections over the scope of the project and whether it would compete with the film festival.

But their concerns were allayed when Ericksen agreed to meet several conditions, including a guarantee that the development would not harm the festival and would comply with Park City’s design guidelines.

“Our biggest motivation was to be involved in the design of what it looks like because it's quite a bit bigger than the surrounding buildings and we wanted to make sure that it can be an asset to Sundance," Park City City Manager Tom Bakaly said. “We're a resort town and we have a brand, so we want to a make sure this movie studio and other activities surrounding it are consistent with that brand.”

Raleigh executives have had some preliminary discussions with Sundance officials about aspects of the project, including designs for a screening room, Newport said.

Jill Miller, Managing Director of Sundance Institute said “ “We have had discussions with Raleigh to understand what facilities they plan to build in Park City and whether they may be suited to our needs for the Sundance Film Festival.” 

If the plans are approved, construction should begin later this year with the first soundstages opening in 2013, Newport said.

Raleigh is certainly hoping for a better outcome than it has had since opening its studio last year in  Pontiac, Mich., which has been hard hit by the drop-off in filming in that state. 

The $76-million project was financed in part by $28 million in bonds issued by the Oakland County Economic Development Corp.  Earlier this month,  Raleigh missed a payment to bondholders, requiring the State of Michigan Retirement Systems to step in and make a $420,000 payment, according to the Michigan Treasury Department.

The studio’s seven soundstages have been mostly vacant since Disney wrapped production in January of its 2013 release “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” directed by Sam Raimi. Newport declined to discuss specific events that led to the default, but said the studio had lost considerable business last year after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder slashed the state's film tax-credit program, once one of the most generous in the country, and imposed a $25-million cap on it.

“We’re working to bring production back to the state," Newport said.

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-- Richard Verrier

Photo: Lynn Collins and Taylor Kitsch in a scene from the movie "John Carter." Credit: Frank Connor / Disney

Where the cameras roll

Sample of neighborhoods with permitted TV, film and commercial shoots scheduled this week. Permits are subject to last-minute changes. Sources: FilmL.A. Inc., cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Clarita and Pasadena. Thomas Suh Lauder / Los Angeles Times

IATSE and Teamsters picket producers of '1000 Ways to Die'

About 100 workers staged a protest in Burbank in support of crew members from the cable TV show “1000 Ways to Die.”

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Teamsters Local 399 organized picket lines Monday morning outside the Burbank production office of Original Productions, the producer of the Spike TV show. “1000 Ways to Die” has become the latest flash point in an effort by Hollywood's leading unions to extend contracts to the rapidly growing cable TV sector.

In mounting a strike against the show's producers, IATSE and the Teamsters are alleging that about 30 crew members were fired last week after they unanimously voted to join the unions so they could secure health and pension benefits, safe working conditions and collective bargaining rights.

“This is a successful show,” said Steve Dayan, business agent for Teamsters Local 399, which represents location managers, casting directors and drivers. “They’re making money and they’re doing it on the backs of this crew.”

Jonathan Hanrahan, a transportation coordinator for “1000 Ways to Die,” was among the protesters walking the picket line Monday. “We work really hard on this show and we go the extra mile," Hanrahan said. “All we’re asking is that we have the opportunity to receive health and pension benefits and be properly compensated for our efforts.”

In a statement, Original Productions accused union officials of urging crew members to walk off the job last week and denied claims from union leaders that they had refused to meet with them.

“Neither union has made attempts to meet with the company prior to the picket line announcement,” the company said in a statement. “IATSE and Teamsters have not filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for certification, nor have they demonstrated a majority of the crew signed cards... It is the company’s position that it is not obligated to recognize these two unions as bargaining representatives. Original Productions has always offered competitive wages and excellent working conditions.”

Monday's rally included representatives from the Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and the AFL-CIO.

Now filming its fourth season, "1000 Ways to Die" re-creates unusual ways in which people have died. Original Productions, which makes a number of reality TV programs, including "Ice Road Truckers" and “Deadliest Catch,” has already hired replacement workers, union officials said.

This marks the second time in the last 15 months that IATSE and Teamsters have mounted a high-profile strike in Hollywood. In late 2010, the unions waged a successful walkout against the producers of the reality TV show "The Biggest Loser."

Labor dispute erupts on the set of '1000 Ways to Die'

Matt Loeb of IATSE charts a more aggressive path

'Biggest Loser' labor dispute is settled

— Richard Verrier

Photo: Paula Kaatz (seated) with other picketers as they protest outside the production offices of Original Productions in Burbank on Monday. Two unions, the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees and the Teamsters Local 399, are staging a strike against "1000 Ways to Die," which is produced by Original Productions. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.

 

On Location: Bill introduced to extend state film tax credit

California's film tax credit program would be extended five more years under legislation introduced in Sacramento on Thursday. 

With the support of a coalition of industry groups, including the Motion Picture Assn. of America, Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar) introduced a bill that would extend the state's film and television tax credit through 2018.

Launched in 2009 in an effort to curb runaway production, the program gives filmmakers a 20% to 25% film tax credit toward certain production expenses. The credit can be applied to any business tax liability filmmakers have with the state.

Last fall, state lawmakers approved a one-year extension of the program, which is set to expire in July 2013. The state allocates $100 million a year to the program. While that is a relatively small amount compared to what other states such as New York offer -- about $400 million annually -- supporters say the tax credit has kept jobs from leaving the state and is necessary to keep California competitive.

"By creating tens of thousands of jobs and pumping billions into our economy, the film and television tax credit program has truly been a statewide economic stimulus package,'' Fuentes said in a statement. "With the state's unemployment rate hovering around 12%, we need to extend this targeted incentive to help keep Californians employed."

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Photo: Brad Pitt in a scene from the Oscar-nominated movie "Moneyball," which received a California film tax credit. Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon

 

On Location: ‘Criminal Minds’ among shows filming in hospitals

On the second floor of a hospital, a criminal profiler is strolling down a hallway with a colleague when an alarm goes off. Several doctors and nurses sprint past him to an intensive care unit where a child and potential witness to a crime is being treated.

The scene, for an upcoming episode of the CBS crime drama “Criminal Minds,” actually unfolded last week on the former Sherman Way campus of Northridge Hospital Medical Center, which solely serves as a location backdrop for shows that have included such dramas such as TNT’s “Rizzoli & Isles” and "Hawthorne."

The Northridge facility is among a dozen current and onetime medical centers and hospitals represented by Real to Reel Inc., a 30-year-old Van Nuys location agency that has built a successful niche supplying location managers with something they frequently seek: film-ready hospital settings.

“Hospitals are a staple of crime dramas. Someone’s always getting shot, so we’re always going to the hospitals,” said Jeffrey Spellman, location manager for “Criminal Minds,” which plans to shoot its next episode at another closed hospital, St. Luke Medical Center in Pasadena. “To have a facility like this makes our job much easier.”

Though Real to Reel books productions for a variety of commercial properties, including the popular Hollywood & Highland Center, at least 40% of its business comes from steering movies and TV shows to hospitals.

Some productions film in hospital buildings for a few days, while others such as the now canceled “Scrubs” sign long-term leases. Film companies pay $5,000 to $12,000 a day to rent hospital space.

Real to Reel handles about 100 hospital productions a year, receiving a percentage of rental income. Film bookings for its hospital properties totaled $2.2 million in 2011, up 11% from $1.97 million in 2010, the company says. Most of the business was at the former Northridge medical center, which hosted the Comedy Central medical drama “Children’s Hospital” and the now-canceled TNT series “Hawthorne,” starring Jada Pinkett Smith.

Despite the loss of such a big customer, Gary Onyshko, Real to Reel’s president and chief executive, is optimistic that other shows will fill the void.

“We see a lot of pilots on the horizon for new medical shows,’’ Onyshko said. “We’ve seen a serious uptick.”

Reel to Reel’s clients include St. Luke Medical Center in Pasadena, used in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning boxing drama “Million Dollar Baby” and HBO’s vampire series “True Blood,” and St. Vincent Medical Center, the working hospital in downtown Los Angeles often used by crime dramas such as “CSI,” “The Closer” and “Southland.”

“Over the years we’ve become experts in hospital representations,’’ Onyshko said. “By making these properties available to filming that would have otherwise been boarded-up, we’re able to keep productions in Los Angeles.”

Hospitals permitted by the city and Los Angeles County generated 385 production days in 2011, double the level over the prior year, according to data from FilmL.A. Inc., the nonprofit group that handles permits for the area.

“These facilities play a significant role in the infrastructure that’s available to filmmakers in the L.A. region,’’ said FilmL.A. spokesman Todd Lindgren. “With the popularity of these crime and medical TV shows, we’re glad that we have so many facilities that cater to that need.”

The busiest hospitals last year were Linda Vista Community Hospital in Boyle Heights, routinely one of L.A.’s most popular film locations and which recently hosted Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” and Rob Zombie’s film “The Lords of Salem,” as well as Northridge and St. Vincent Medical Center.

St. Vincent, which rents out unoccupied wings of the historic hospital to film crews, takes in more than $100,000 a year from film rentals. “It generates extra revenue for us,’’ said Jody Spector, director of guest relations at St. Vincent. “They use extra space and apart from the trucks outside often our patients don’t even know they’re here.”

Apart from the setting, hospitals are also attractive to Hollywood because they typically have lots of parking to accommodate crews. And, Real to Reel works with property owners to make the facilities film friendly. The former Northridge medical center, for example, has gimbal windows that can swing open to make it easier to shoot inside rooms. The nurse’s station table was lowered to improve camera angles.

"These properties are affordable, they’re turn-key and they’re ready to go and directors love them because they offer a variety of looks," Onyshko said.

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Photo: "Criminal Minds" shoots an episode of the CBS show at the former Sherman Way campus of Northridge Hospital Medical Center, which is now closed. Credit: Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times 

Where the cameras roll

Sample of neighborhoods with permitted TV, film and commercial shoots scheduled this week. Permits are subject to last-minute changes. Sources: FilmL.A. Inc., cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Clarita and Pasadena. Thomas Suh Lauder / Los Angeles Times

On Location: AFCI's Martin Cuff touts role of film commissioners

Martin Cuff, who has run film commissions from Colorado to Cape Town, South Africa, and built up film programs in Bosnia, Turkey and Serbia, was recently tapped to be executive director of the Association of Film Commissioners International, which hosts the popular annual Locations Show. A native of England who lives in South Africa, Cuff talked to the Los Angeles Times about his new job and the upcoming expo, to be held June 15 and 16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

What role do film commissioners play in today’s global market?

Film commissions are set up by governments to be the custodian of economic activity. That involves attracting international production to the destination, because it obviously creates jobs and stimulates small business growth.

But the job of film commissioners also is to support film festivals to make sure that money circulates in the local economy, develop film audiences, support local filmmakers and connect with film schools -- in short solidifying all aspects of the industry and creating platforms on which the global film industry can continue to grow and be sustainable.

So how will this year’s trade show differ from last year’s?

For the first time this year, the Locations show will also run concurrently with the opening weekend of the Los Angeles Film Festival, a 10-day event produced by Film Independent. It’s a natural tie-in for us because we will get a whole base of independent filmmakers who need this kind of information.

We will offer networking events, workshops, seminars, discussions and presentations -- all geared to sharing the most current, dynamic and effective body of knowledge about working on location throughout the world.

Last year you partnered with the Producers Guild of America. Did you have a falling out?

We didn’t get to manage the program and we needed to generate a certain amount of income. It was purely a financial decision. It was all very amicable.

Some critics in the past have dubbed the AFCI show a poacher’s festival, saying it encourages runaway production. What do you say to that?

Film commissions are not just blood-sucking vampires out to steal business away from California, but a dynamic gateway to the world. I'd like to think that the presence of film commissions will connect Californian producers and filmmakers with new markets, new finance and funding, new business relationships and new audiences.

China is just producing its first $100-million movie. Brazil's economy is bigger than California's. The TV audience in India is 600 million people. Africa's economy as a whole is growing faster than China's. There is business to be done in the international marketplace, and film commissions can provide an additional, impartial and completely free platform with which to begin that business outreach.

Serbia isn’t an obvious film market. How did you end up working in that country?

I was a consultant with the AFCI and they reached out to me to help develop their film program. Serbia was cheap but it was perceived to be risky, not so much because of war, but lack of information. So we had some challenges. We established a film commission and film incentive program, formally introducing to 14  municipalities nationwide the kinds of processes, protocols and responsiveness required by production.

My proudest success was probably a Serbian film function we held at the Sarajevo Film Festival in Bosnia, where hundreds of filmmakers from across the former Yugoslavia came together to celebrate the future.

You’ve spent years in South Africa. What brought you there?

I was living in London with some South Africans who persuaded me to go with them to South Africa when (Nelson) Mandela was released. I started working for a casting director’s office and later went to work for the Southern Africa International Film & Television Market. In South Africa, we had a young black film industry looking to try to create sustainable ways to tell their own stories.

We managed to create a small film fund to support a number of filmmakers to create their own movies and provided work space where they could use computers and read film textbooks. The experience taught that as a film commissioner your job is to create economic development and opportunity.

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Photo: Martin Cuff was recently tapped to be executive director of the Association of International Film Commissioners. Credit: Francois Botha

Where the cameras roll

Sample of neighborhoods with permitted TV, film and commercial shoots scheduled this week. Permits are subject to last-minute changes. Sources: FilmL.A. Inc., cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Clarita and Pasadena. Thomas Suh Lauder / Los Angeles Times

On Location: Stargate Studios takes virtual production to Germany

With offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Mumbai and Malta, Pasadena-based visual effects producer Stargate Studios is now expanding the reach of its virtual stage technology to Europe by opening new facilities near Berlin.

The production company, started in 1989 by visual effects supervisor and cinematographer Sam Nicholson, uses green screen technology — a technique in which actors perform in front of a blank screen that is later replaced by a separately filmed background — as a cost-effective substitute to location filming. Clients include television shows ABC’s “Pan Am” (set in New York, London and Paris), AMC’s “The Walking Dead” (set in Georgia) and Fox’s “Touch” (set in locales across the globe).

"We've been using our virtual technology here in the States for many years and it's been so successful,'' Nicholson said. "Now, European producers are eager to employ the same virtual back lot technology. They can use it to greatly increase the creative scope and look of their shows, without increasing the budget."

The new facilities, located at Studio Babelsberg — one of the world’s oldest major film studios — include three green screen stages measuring 150 feet by 100 feet, as well as a 100-foot-long exterior rolling screen. Producers, technical supervisors and trained compositors — all German hires — make up a staff of 15 that is supported by the approximately 200 Stargate employees based here in the L.A. area.

The estimated cost of the new studio so far is estimated at $1.3 million and is the first step in a larger investment that Nicholson expects to reach $13 million.

In return for employing Germans and using new technologies, Stargate is receiving support from the German government in the form of a financial package that covers 10% to 30% of costs associated with new equipment purchases and local hires.  

Stargate Germany’s first production — 240 episodes of “Road to Happiness,” a new German daily drama series — began filming last month and is one of several projects the company is working on in partnership with Grundy UFA, Europe’s largest television series producer. Other Grundy UFA pilot series planned to film at the facility include “Mr. and Mrs. Murder” and “All My Girls.”

Virtual technology “will give us the possibility of shooting cheaper than before, if we use it correctly,” said Guido Reinhardt, chief creative officer for Grundy UFA.  

Stargate's technology is appealing for more than its cost efficiency. The creative advantages of being able to set a script anywhere, during any time period, opened the world of storytelling for his creative team, said Reinhardt.

“Road to Happiness” takes place in a seaside setting in North Germany. “But there is no sea in the North,” said Reinhardt. “You have stories taking place at a harbor, conversations happening at the top of a lighthouse.”

Despite Stargate’s foray into yet another foreign region, Nicholson said the company remains firmly planted in Pasadena. But Nicholson has seen an increase in the number of clients choosing to leave L.A. in order to receive tax credits for filming elsewhere. “The Walking Dead” shoots in Georgia and ABC’s upcoming series “Missing” films in Prague. “The workhorse of the industry is the television series, and we’ve lost it to incentives,” he said.

Under California’s film incentive program, filmmakers can receive a tax credit equivalent to 20% to 25% of qualified production expenses, but the program has an annual cap of $100 million and has struggled to compete with more generous programs in states like Louisiana and New York, both of which enjoyed record levels of production last year.  

“This technology can be the key to runaway production,” Nicholson said. The relatively lower cost and flexibility of shooting on a virtual stage helped to keep TNT’s upcoming Frank Darabont series “L.A. Noir” in town, he added.

In the meantime, the new German studio is another way to keep Stargate’s Pasadena employees busy. “We can work overseas," Nicholson said. "At the same time, we can control cost and help productions to stay in L.A."

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Photo: One of Stargate Germany's new green-screen stages located at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam, Germany. Credit: Stargate Studios. 

 

Fireman's Fund consultant sings safety tune at Grammys

At the Grammy Awards Sunday night, performers including alternative-country duo Civil Wars, jazz artist Diana Krall and British singer Adele will take to the stage, along with the reunited Beach Boys and more than a dozen other musical acts.

Working behind the scenes to make sure that nothing goes wrong is Paul Holehouse, entertainment risk consultant for Fireman's Fund Insurance Company.

Holehouse, a former safety executive at Universal Studios, visits sets of movie and TV shows as well as big events like the Grammys to identify potential risks and avoid accidents that can cause injury, losses and delays.

"My job is to coordinate with them [the producers] and make them comfortable that any liability issues are addressed ahead of time so they can do their show without any concerns,'' said Holehouse, 63.

This week he was busy meeting with representatives of John Cossette Productions Inc., which is producing the Grammys, and with rigging crews and fire department officials, to review plans for the two-hour show to be held at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles and telecast on CBS. 

"There's a whole spectrum of things we look for, from slip and fall hazards, to stunt effects, evacuation plans and the rigging on stages," Holehouse said.

At the 2010 Grammys, Holehouse was responsible for ensuring that Pink's high wire act, in which she twirled in the air wrapped in silk scarves while fastened to a harness, went off without a hitch.

In addition to the Grammys, Holehouse also worked on the halftime show at the Super Bowl, the popular music festival Lollapalooza and scores of TV shows and movies. In fact, Fireman's says it insures 80% of all films in the U.S., and 60% of all reality shows, providing coverage for everything from props and sets to actors who don't show up on set because of a death or illness. The company also issues so-called film completion bonds, which are guarantees that a film will be completed on schedule and on budget.

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Photo: Paul Holehouse, entertainment risk consultant, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. Photo courtesy of Fireman's Fund.

 

On Location: New York’s Roosevelt Hotel stars in ‘Man on a Ledge’

To Los Angelenos, the name Roosevelt Hotel calls to mind the Spanish-style building on Hollywood Boulevard, the site of the first Academy Awards. But it's the other Roosevelt Hotel, the one in New York City, that is getting the star treatment in the new Sam Worthington thriller "Man on a Ledge."

Named for President Theodore Roosevelt (just as the Hollywood hotel is), the 20-story hotel in Manhattan has served as a Midtown Manhattan location for “The French Connection,” “Quiz Show,” “Wall Street” and "Maid in Manhattan," as well as episodes of “The Good Wife” and “Law & Order.” The hotel will also appear in this year’s “Men in Black 3” and Sacha Baron Cohen’s “The Dictator.”

But the Roosevelt Hotel plays an unusually prominent role in "Man on a Ledge," in which Worthington's character stands on a ledge of the building about 200 feet above the intersection of Madison Avenue and 45th Street, while his brother is pulling off a jewelry heist on the opposite side of the street.

“I think sometimes an audience demands a certain authenticity," Worthington told the Los Angeles Times at the film’s L.A. premiere on Jan. 23. "People actually knowing that I’m up there 200-odd feet in the air adds to the thrilling aspect of it.”

Filmmakers selected the Roosevelt in part because of its grandeur. The hotel was built in 1924 and has many features that can't be found in more modern New York hotels, including its neo-classical lobby, the French marble and limestone facade, and the ledge where Worthington's character appears to contemplate suicide.

“Really, the Roosevelt was the only building that had all the elements to get the film done,” said location scout Adam Baer.

“Man on a Ledge” producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had shot exteriors for 2007 horror film “1408” at the hotel and said it was a “very film-friendly” location to which he was eager to return. “It was also the perfect location for ‘Man on a Ledge’ because it was right on Madison Avenue,'' di Bonaventura said. "You really got a sense of the big canyons of New York there.”

Roosevelt director of sales and marketing Kevin Croke initially expressed some doubts about having the hotel depicted in a movie about a man threatening to take his own life, but changed his mind after reading the script and talking to producers. Besides, film productions bring in some extra revenue to the hotel, which charges productions anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $15,000 a day depending on the project and what part of the hotel is used.

The promotion doesn't hurt either. Croke said that the release of “Maid in Manhattan” brought in an influx of calls with requests to come in and take a picture in the hotel's employee cafeteria -- the spot where Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes share a kiss at the end of the movie. (Depending on how busy they are, hotel staff usually grant the request.)

"All the mentions of the hotel in various reviews and articles – it's great publicity for the hotel,'' Croke said.

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–- Emily Rome

Photo: Elizabeth Banks and Sam Worthington in “Man on a Ledge,” shot at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. Credit: Myles Aronowitz / Summit Entertainment