Cate Blanchett also to star in first production using parish Community Center

By CALEB FREY

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – St. John the Baptist Parish is getting its first glimpse of big-budget motion picture production as Paramount Pictures begins work on its first feature presentation within the confines of the newly built civic center located in LaPlace.

Paramount Pictures Studios, in conjunction with The Louisiana Institute of Film and Technology (LIFT), which rents space at the center at a cost of $15,000 monthly, are in pre-production for &#8220The Curious Case of Benjamin Butler” starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Pitt is playing an elderly man who begins to age backwards and encounters complications when, at age 50, he falls in love with a younger woman, played by Blanchett, who is 30. The film is set for a 2007 release and production will run in the community center’s atrium until early next year, according to Wayne Read, a marketing consultant for the St. John Parish Community Center.

The Community Center atrium is currently being transformed into a train station for the film, but money being made for the parish from filming inside of the center is not the only economic boon taking place in the parish, according to Read.

&#8220Local lumber is being purchased for the film to help build sets. Local hotel rooms are used during production as well as local residents homes,” Read said. &#8220There is a much larger economic picture to look at than simply what’s going on at the center itself.”

&#8220Curious Case” will be filmed throughout the metro region over the next several months, but a substantial part of the film will be done in the Community Center, one of many upcoming projects Read hopes.

&#8220What we’re doing in the center is just one piece of the pie,” Read said. &#8220It’s a big piece though.”