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RUNAWAY JURY As was The Pelican Brief, the film Runaway Jury is based on a novel by John Grisham. In this one, the widow of a man killed in a shooting incident sues the manufacturer of the murder weapon. The case goes to trial and, well, Netflix the movie to find out the rest. When you do, watch for the scene that takes place inside Judge Harkins chambers; it was filmed in the library of No. 2 Audubon, the traditional home of the Tulane president. This is the film that brought Dustin Hoffman and John Cusak to campus in 2002. THE PELICAN BRIEF Julia Roberts plays Darby Hall, a Tulane Law student who thinks she knows who has murdered a couple of Supreme Court justices in this taut drama that was partially shot on campus in 1992. Look for the scene in which Roberts is studying in “the Submarine,” the claustrophobic library of the law school, that was in those days housed in Jones Hall.
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MARDI GRAS A travesty if they had shot this on a Hollywood backlot, no? Starring that grande dame of American cinema, Carmen Electra, this film follows three college friends who travel to New Orleans to blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. The Woldenberg Art Center’s Freeman Auditorium was one of the locations for the shoot. The film has as yet to be released. 2009 PETER STONE / SONY PICTURES
this is exactly where I imagined the scene happening was surreal, to say the least,” Pearl Faux Blossoms told the Times-Picayune. (left) A row of bald But So Undercover still required Arceneaux cypress trees are turned and his crew to perform some Hollywood into cherry trees through trickery, including bedecking a row of cypress the meticulous applicasaplings between Dinwiddie and Gibson tion of plastic flowers. halls with hundreds of authentic-looking Elsewhere, indoor and but physically and seasonally impossible outdoor campus venues pink blossoms. provide backdrops for Location managers such as Arceneaux are So Undercover’s action. the first and primary contacts the university has with visiting movie projects. They are also the last to leave when wrap day finally arrives, months after they first ventured onto campus, cameras in hand, trying to secure the real-life version of what’s in the director’s imagination. Throughout filming, they troubleshoot a million disparate details and complications that only a make-believe world can provide, such as the time during the shooting of Faith of My Fathers, the John McCain biopic, a fabricated rain scene in Gibson Quad had to be cancelled because it actually started to rain. “Okay, we’ll have to remove these light posts and all these signs and probably those door handles, too, ” says Elston Howard, location manager for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter as he faces Newcomb Hall. “They didn’t have those in 1860. And do you think we can cut or remove those palm trees?” But after numerous site visits, planning and a confab with the grounds crew, the scenes are ultimately dropped from the script proving once again that fame is indeed fleeting. But the Green Wave’s star only dims for a moment. Soon another location scout is calling in search of a setting for a remake of the Flemish thriller Loft. “There’s an art opening in it and…”
HURRICANE SEASON Forest Whitaker stars as a New Orleans high school basketball coach who in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina assembles a basketball team from players who had attended five separate (and now defunct) schools before the storm. The film’s tennis shoes-squeaking-on-the-court action was shot in 2008 in Fogelman Arena.
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ALL THE KING’S MEN Robert Penn Warren’s tale of the rise of Gov. Willie Stark was brought to the screen in 2006, with Sean Penn in the leading role. The movie was largely shot in southeast Louisiana, with filming wrapped up in summer 2005, shortly before the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. The filmmakers premiered the film at McAlister Hall on Tulane’s campus the following year as a show of solidarity with the still-recovering city. GETTY IMAGES
THE EXPENDABLES In this case, the university was just that—expendable. Writer and director Sly Stallone toured the grounds, nodding approvingly at what he saw, but ultimately chose not to use Tulane in his film. Come on, Rocky …
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