Gary’s City Methodist Church to be filmed for Nightmare remake

Posted on: May/22/2009 6:11 PM

Yesterday, the Times published an article on Gary’s City Methodist Church being filmed for Platinum Dunes’ A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Read below for details:

Gary set to be backdrop for scenes in Freddy Krueger remake
By Times Staff | Thursday, May 21, 2009

Freddy Krueger is coming to Gary’s City Methodist Church on Friday, and New Line Cinema will use the historic landmark as a backdrop for a handful of scenes for its scheduled 2010 jumpstart of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

The city and the movie studio were in talks about the location over the past few months, but a decision wasn’t made until recently, said Ben Clement, who serves as executive director of the Gary Office of Film and Television.

Clement, who also serves as economic development and marketing administrator for the city’s empowerment zone, said the city’s board of public works and safety made the film shoot official on Wednesday.

In picking the City Methodist Church — at the intersection of 6th Avenue and Washington Street — the movie studio wanted an architectural style that would fit the story line of the film, and present a grand vision, said Clement. Landing New Line Cinema, he said, involved working with the studio’s production managers, who scout potential locations for a film shoot and lay out the general requirements for any location.

Clement expects between 150 and 200 production trucks, about 200 crew members, bright lights and lots of smoke for special effects used during the night-time shooting, which begins Friday night. And of course the star of the horror franchise — Freddy Krueger — will be on set as well.

“I expect it will bring some people over,” he said. “This is Hollywood.”

New Line is scheduled to returning to Gary in June to shoot on location on Tyler Street, which will be used as the backdrop for a dream sequence that in the film takes place on Elm Street.

This won’t be the first time City Methodist Church has served a backdrop for directors.

Gospel recording artist Dwayne Coleman shot a music video there, and Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz used the church as a backdrop in the documentary Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz.

New Line Cinema’s remake of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, directed by Wes Craven in 1984, is scheduled to star Jackie Earle Haley as Krueger, according to IMDB.com.