On Location: Cameras rolling on Sofia Coppola’s L.A. crime caper
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Independent film darling and Oscar winner Sofia Coppola began production on ‘The Bling Ring’ in Calabasas this week, according to the city clerk’s office. The majority of filming, however, is expected to take place in Los Angeles.
The movie, inspired by true events, is about fame-obsessed teens growing up on the fringes of Hollywood celebrity culture who become burglars targeting the homes of stars.
Leslie Mann and Emma Watson star in the film along with a crop of fresh young faces, including Taissa Farmiga, Katie Chang and Maika Monroe. Coppola, daughter of famed director Francis Ford Coppola, also wrote the script and is producing alongside her brother, Roman Coppola, and Youree Henley.
Representatives for Coppola and San Francisco-based production company American Zoetrope declined to comment.
The real Bling Ring, also known as The Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch, was a group of L.A. teenagers that burglarized numerous celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, by using the Internet to track down their whereabouts and addresses. The group allegedly stole more than $3 million worth of clothing and jewelry in 2008 and 2009.
The burglaries have already inspired adaptations. In the 2010 premiere episode of ‘Law & Order: Los Angeles,’ the fictional detectives tracked down a young group of thieves that robbed the rich and famous. A made-for-T.V. movie, also titled ‘The Bling Ring,’ aired on Lifetime last year.
This will be Coppola’s second consecutive film to tell a uniquely Angeleno tale. Her last picture, Focus Feature’s 2010 release ‘Somewhere,’ starred Stephen Dorff as an idle Hollywood actor going through an existential crisis while living at the legendary Chateau Marmont.
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-- Dima Alzayat