Ben Affleck’s “Live by Night” now casting extras in Savannah and Brunswick

UPDATE 10/25: The casting agency now claims that filming has been pushed to September 14th. Click here for the latest post.

With the filming of SpongeBob SquarePants 2 wrapping up soon, there’s more good news on the horizon for the film industry in Savannah and in Georgia.

I wrote in May about the likelihood of Ben Affleck shooting Live By Night, an adaptation of a novel by Dennis Lehane, here in Savannah. In fact, I was pretty sure that the “blockbuster” announced in June by the Savannah Film Office was going to be Affleck’s upcoming crime drama, not the quirky SpongeBob.

And now there’s this from the Facebook page for Sande Alessi Casting, a company that worked with Affleck on Argo:

Savannah has a wide range of locations that actually date from the Depression-era or close enough to be a good fit, including some spots where there were Affleck sightings a few months ago, like the American Legion Post #135 and the Crystal Beer Parlor.

Lehane’s Live by Night won the prestigious 2013 Edgar Award for best novel. From the Boston Globe:

“Live by Night” is the second in a trilogy about a Boston family of Irish lawmen. It tells the tale of Joe Coughlin’s rise from thief to gangster in the Prohibition Era.

Ben Affleck is of course no stranger to Savannah. About a decade ago, he bought a home on Hampton Island and was reported as recently as October 2012 to still be spending time there.

My only local Affleck sighting was at the North Beach Grill one nice afternoon many years ago, where he dined with Jennifer Lopez.

Click here for a great 2010 shot of Affleck with Chef Jerome at the Old School Diner down the road in Townsend.