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Showing posts from July, 2011

Constructing ‘The Avengers’ Sets on E. 9th in Cleveland; Could This be the Entrance to Stark Tower?

Wednesday, I had the good fortune to attend a Cleveland Indians game with my 7-year-old and his summer camp. While walking back from Progressive Field, I caught what looks to be set construction for the upcoming Avengers film. Actually, I’m 99 percent sure it is. Recent info from the  Plain Dealer  ‘Avengers’ Blog warns commuters that several roads will be closed during August , including E. 9 th  (the main artery in and out of town, for those of you not familiar with  Cleveland ). And you can’t mistake a film set when you see a couple Haddad’s trucks parked nearby. So the question is, what is this place they’re constructing? They’re building onto the Ameritrust Tower , what locals sometimes call the Honeycomb Building . That particular building has been abandoned for nearly 20 years. It stands next to a beautiful old bank, also deserted, which featured briefly in Spider-Man 3 , when that film shot along Euclid Avenue . Gut instinct says it’s standing in as a mor

‘Backdraft’ Scribe Pen Densham Says Success for Midwest Screenwriters is Just a Few Ideas Away

No doubt in a basement office in Cleveland or the back booth of a coffee shop in Pittsburgh or on an iPad in the middle of study hall in an Indianapolis high school, there’s an aspiring screenwriter punching keys and imagining great adventures that she hopes will someday grace the silver screen. Not in Los Angeles , not in New York , but right here in the Midwest . Is she just chasing a dream? Not according to screenwriter Pen Densham, whose film credits include Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Backdraft, and Rocky II . “ The truth is, any movie is about great ideas that stimulate human emotions, and if you can write films that mesh in scale with the new grass-roots producers that are evolving all over the country, there is a chance that someone in your city may be just as likely to produce your script as someone in Hollywood,” says Densham. “There is a new, technological gold-rush, as digital technology disrupts the entire old distribution system, and no one is quite certain w