As a feature-film actor, Long Beach is in the same league as your Meryl Streeps, your Al Pacinos, your Laurence Oliviers. It\u2019s the City of a Thousand Faces.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s often typecast as Miami or other Floridian cities (“Dexter,” “CSI: Miami”), Long Beach has stretched its skills to play the roles of such international cities as Shanghai (\u201cTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen\u201d), Beijing (\u201cRed Corner\u201d), Calcutta (\u201cBASEketball\u201d), and even the Central American country of Val Verde, a fictional location frequently used by film writer and producer Steven E. de Souza when his works demand a South- or Central-American location that will not prompt legal or diplomatic problems (\u201cCommando\u201d).<\/p>\n
Now Long Beach is getting its makeup done in preparation for its star turn as a beach in France for a summer of 2019 likely blockbuster film \u201cFord vs. Ferrari,\u201d starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale.<\/p>\n
The $100-milion film is looking at a few locations in Long Beach, but crews are already at work this week on a 10-day build of a set at Alamitos Bay\u2019s famous \u201cHorney Corner\u201d at 54th Place.<\/p>\n
The crews are basically rebuilding Alfredo\u2019s Beach Club to look more or less the way the restaurant\/snack bar used to look before the the city made its owner, the late Fred (Alfredo) Khammar, tear down its palm-thatched roof and otherwise tragically clean up the once-funky beach hangout that has stood there for decades, back to the 1960s and 70s when it was Woody\u2019s Goodys.<\/p>\n
Now, with carpenters and other crafts workers, it\u2019s looking like its old self again, except we\u2019re to believe it\u2019s in France.<\/p>\n
The film, about Henry Ford II\u2019s ambitious plan to build a car from scratch that could compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race against perennial winner Ferrari, is filming entirely in California thanks to $17 million in tax credits from the California Film Commission, which has been fighting off Canada and such states as Georgia and Mississippi that have been swiping feature films from California in recent years. Various locations throughout the state will be featured in \u201cFord vs. Ferrari,\u201d taking on roles as Florida, Michigan and England.<\/p>\n
Damon will star as car-builder Carroll Shelby; Bale plays the part of Shelby\u2019s British driver Ken Miles.<\/p>\n
Tax credits have also been given in recent months to keep such projects as the long-awaited \u201cDeadwood\u201d movie, a reboot of \u201cScarface,\u201d director Jordan Peele\u2019s untitled follow-up to \u201cGet Out,\u201d and \u201cComing 2 America,\u201d a sequel to the Eddie Murphy film \u201cComing to America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in Long Beach, a new ABC TV series, \u201cGrand Hotel\u201d (based on the Spanish-language series \u201cGran Hotel\u201d) crews and talent have filmed around town, including sequences at the Rose Towers<\/a> on Third Street (the same location that was used in \u201cLa La Land\u201d<\/a>) and Blair Field, and the Bravo production of \u201cDirty John,\u201d based on the L.A. Times series and podcast, continues to visit locations on the Peninsula and Naples and other spots around town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Film crews are rebuilding Alfredo\u2019s Beach Club to look more or less the way the restaurant\/snack bar used to look before the the city made its former owner clean up the once-funky beach hangout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":66052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[216],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filming","tag-filming","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}