Helicopter flyover alert: NBC’s new police action series, “Chase,” which debuts next week, is a show about the federal fugitive-apprehension team in Houston. The show’s lead character — a role notable for having been turned down by Maria Bello, Tea Leoni, and Christina Applegate — is U.S. Marshal Annie Frost (played by former All My Children star Kelli Giddish), who leads her law-enforcement team chasing criminals all over South Texas. So it was really important that the cast and crew find a way to get plenty of that Texas flavor on the show.
No-brainer, then: Under the guidance of executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the production team moved to uh, Dallas to film the pilot. And that’s where they’ll film later episodes too. Hey, it puts them right in the action to do all of those good 10-gallon-hat and runaway cattle scenes. Sure, but what are they gonna do when they’ve got a scene set in the Galleria, or Highland Village, or West Village Ave? What about then?
- Chase [NBC]
- Houston, we have a TV problem: New series set in Bayou City being filmed in Dallas [11 News]
Video: NBC
23 Comments
But will there be mountains?
Haha I hope it’s better than remember Walker Texas Ranger. Maybe Kelli Giddish is the next female Chuck Norris.
Get used to it. Chicago was used for Gotham City is Batman Begins. Vancouver and Toronto are often used for New York City.
Only select scenes will be shot here and the rest will happen on the streets of LA and in sound stages.
What’s funny about this isn’t that they filmed a show about Houston in Dallas. That sort of thing happens all the time. It’s that in the video they don’t seem to know the difference, and go on to brag about their Texas authenticity, showing all these Dallas-y places.
Yawn.. Wake me up next season..
Well, Dallas-y places are authentically in Texas. And, we’ll always have RoboCop.
I guess Houston doesn’t look like Houston on film.
who cares? Nobody watches NBC/CBS/ABC, network television is dead. I’ll wait for the usual they watch in the burbs comment.
This show looks really, really awful. Almost as awful as the absurd “news” report tie-in to this show that Dominique Sachse did earlier this week.
This show = fail. Channel 2 = fail. NBC = fail.
To paraphrase Hedley Lamarr: “You provincial putzes.”
The sad thing is the lack of resources this city has for film makers, as in casting agents, crew people, edit houses, etc. There are shoots all over Louisiana and up in Austin.
There was a time when we had a decent little industry in place and many major NY based ad agencies had offices in here, which kept the workers working. One could make a living. Little by little, it all dribbled away, thus most of the talent left, too.
Finness,
It all comes down to tax incentives goodies the local authorities give production companies to film there.
Louisiana (as a state) and the city of New Orleans is very film production friendly. They make big accommodations to get the film business in the state. One of the first big landmarks in the states push for this was Steel Magnolias. Hollywood always has a big list possible productions and these kinds of incentives and nudge their decisions on what to make.
I don’t know much about Texas and the film industry. My random shot in the dark is that the City of Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth probably have employees and/or organization set up to cater to film production.
@kjb434
You’re spot on regarding Louisiana, but I believe Shreveport leads the state in filming.
Cross, you are right about that. Shreveport is in a LOT of films and not usually as Shreveport. The city has a bunch of different streetscapes that work for many different scenes and unless you are from there you won’t know where it was filmed. There’s a reason it earn the title All American City for so many years.
I think one of the oddest locale-subsitutions was in Eyes Wide Shut, where Kubrick evidently thought London could pass for New York City.
Remember the show “Houston Knights”? I loved watching that for it’s single season. My favorite part was the sceninc hills off in the distance, and the heroes speeding to downtown from NASA via the Galleria. The scenes were always the same loops that they filmed here at one point put into different orders and called by different landmark names. The Astrodome was usually consistant but that was the only landmark they got right. I can’t wait to see all of the Dallas/FW landmarks called by Houston names. Sounds like a drinking game to me.
The Houston Press did a piece on this earlier in the week and apparently Houston fails as a locale (compared to Austin and Dallas) for lack of local talent in the area. A commenter there, though, said that Houston folk are heading up to Dallas to help out with those productions.
The folks who live in LA have to suspend disbelief with absurd geography jumps all the time. It’s not just a local thing.
And Gotham doesn’t exist, so why shouldn’t it be in Chicago?
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/09/ttv_film_production_dallas.php
Interesting feature article in today’s WSJ about film production in Detroit, of all places. Evidently it all comes down to tax incentives. Dallas chose to subsidize their film industry, and we chose Wal-Mart, I guess.
Houston HAS tax incentives and a film commission
http://www.houstonfilmcommission.com/
The issue, as ‘stina and I said, is lack of people. Nobody looking to save $ wants to bring in their crew from out of town.
People serious about making this their career have mostly left town or they have places to stay in Dallas/Austin/Shreveport etc. and thus present themselves as locals.
So would it help or not to turn the Astrodome into a giant soundstage/movie production facility?
Anon 22-
Sure it would help, but how much? Would there be a solid return on investment? Hard to say.
@ kjb434 – I know! The REAL Gotham City looks NOTHING like Chicago!
‘stina and Dani,
Gotham is term to reference New York City and the term Gothamnites references the people of New York City although historically Batman’s hometown was drawn as a fantasy place.
From the book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898:
“Gotham” as a term for New York City was coined by Washington Irving in an 1807 November issue of his literary magazine, Salmagundi, based on the legends of the English village of Gotham, whose inhabitants are known for their folly.