Rain sends the party indoors

A Hollywood film crew shoots a scene from Pete's Dragon on a yellow school bus in Tapanui...
A Hollywood film crew shoots a scene from Pete's Dragon on a yellow school bus in Tapanui yesterday. Photos by Gregor Richardson.
American vehicles are parked on the wrong side of Northumberland St in anticipation of a day's...
American vehicles are parked on the wrong side of Northumberland St in anticipation of a day's filming that did not happen.
A newspaper dispenser outside the ''yellow diner''.
A newspaper dispenser outside the ''yellow diner''.

Blame it on the rain: the first day scheduled for filming Walt Disney Pictures' Pete's Dragon on the streets of Tapanui, West Otago, did not happen as planned.

Unit publicist Andy Lipschultz was philosophical about yesterday's inclement weather and the switch to shooting scenes inside instead of outside for the film starring Robert Redford.

''It happens,'' he said.

He said the weather forecast for the fictional town of Millhaven, Douglas County, somewhere in the American Pacific Northwest, was good for today, however.

The rain had not delayed the filming schedule, just altered it.

When the weather did not co-operate, ''enough interior stuff'' was required to continue filming.

Local children, some of the 40 local extras cast in the film, yesterday rode a circuit through Tapanui in an old yellow school bus equipped with a camera inside.

Director David Lowrey's version of the 1977 family film, a blend of live-action and computer graphics, would be ''not at all'' similar to the Mickey Rooney classic cartoonish romp, Mr Lipschultz said.

''It's going to be a big shift.''

Tapanui as Millhaven is dressed in stark 1980s Americana.

A plaque on the fictional courthouse pins its opening to June 25, 1905. Douglas County was founded in 1859, according to the sheriff's cars.

Newspaper boxes for the Millhaven Post are filled with a black and white broadsheet running a lead story ''Farmer & son: The legacy of the land''.

The studio hopes the film will be a summer blockbuster.

''It's a big movie - it's an important movie for the studio,'' Mr Lipschultz said.

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz

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