To recap: it has been understood for a while now that Ben Affleck plans to adapt Dennis Lehane’s Edgar Award-winning Live By Night for the screen and that Savannah is among the likeliest of shooting locations. (Click here for a variety of posts on this blog.)

Live By Night even had/has a release date of December 2015 — a prime time for releasing potential Oscar contenders.

But that timetable presumed that the so far untitled Superman-Batman project would begin shooting sometime early in 2014. That potential blockbuster, with Affleck as one of the sort-of-unlikely stars, was set for a summer 2015 release, but that has now been pushed back to 2016.

A blog post at the Chicago Tribune echoes the questions being raised by a plethora of other websites:

One continuing moving part is what this means for Affleck and his always busy schedule. Affleck was planning on directing “Live by Night” following production on “Superman-Batman,” with Warners already dating “Night” for Dec. 25, 2015.

It now seems unlikely that Affleck would be able to jump into the director’s chair before the end of 2014, which would put pressure on getting the film done on time in order to meet WB’s deadline.

In theory, Affleck could rush production of Live By Night, but that seems sort of unlikely unless shooting of the Batman movie gets pushed back even further.

For film industry professionals in Savannah and in the Southeast who were hoping to work on Live By Night, this news could create some other professional quandaries until we get a better idea what’s going on.

Affleck will be producer, director, writer, and star of the adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s recent Edgar Award-winning novel.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Sande Alessi Casting — who worked with Affleck on Argo — said that they were already casting extras for filming in Savannah and Brunswick in early 2014.

Now they have backed off and are claiming a September 2014 start date:

A PR ploy by the casting agency to get more traffic to their new Facebook page? That strikes me as odd since a company that does something like that obviously runs the risk of ruining their relationship with Affleck.

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 Coughlinâ€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.

SpongeBob sequel scheduled to film in Savannah

The City of Savannah Film Services Office announced today the “SpongeBob Movie 2” will be shooting live action scenes in the Savannah area this September, October and November.

“SpongeBob is a very successful international franchise and we are very excited to be working with Paramount on this project. This is a good fit for us and them. We know from experience how valuable the investment and exposure generated by a project like this can be for our community,” said Jay Self, City of Savannah Film Services Director.

Individuals interested in working as crew may forward resumes to: resumes.spongebob2@gmail.com.

I still think it’s likely that we will hear something about the Affleck film soon.

ORIGINAL POST:

More signs are pointing to the likelihood of Ben Affleck making his adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Edgar Award-winning novel Live By Night in Savannah in the coming months.

From ‘Blockbuster’ movie could be shot in Savannah in today’s Savannah Morning News:

The deal is “99 percent done” and an announcement could come soon, Jay Self told the Savannah Downtown Business Association. The film would be shot downtown and would generate approximately $250,000 a day in spending, he said.

I don’t have inside knowledge of anything, but it’s no secret that Ben Affleck has looked at Savannah locations for Live By Night. Check out this post from late May for other details and links.

And reliable sources confirmed that Affleck was back in Savannah about two weeks ago.

Lehane’s novel is set during the Prohibition-era in south Florida — that’s a period and a location that existing Savannah locations can support. As I have previously noted, Georgia’s more flexible tax incentives might be giving us an edge over Florida in competition for the shoot.

And a few words of caution: I could be totally wrong and it’s always possible that someone could pull the plug on the entire project.

A word of caution: the film business is pretty fickle. Sometimes, projects evaporate overnight and production plans shift in a heartbeat. I have no idea if Affleck is considering other cities or how much of the film might be shot in Savannah if things move ahead.

I don’t have any inside knowledge about much of anything, but it’s worth noting that there has been considerable press recently about Affleck’s newest project Live by Night, which he is apparently producing, directing, writing, and starring in. (I assume that “Live” would be pronounced like “give” but the title seems more provocative if pronounced like “hive”.)

From Deadline Hollywood’s Ben Affleck And Warner Bros Set Next Film: Dennis Lehane Crime Novel ‘Live By Nightâ€:

Warner Bros Pictures chief Jeff Robinov didnâ€t waste any time moving to make Ben Affleck‘s next picture after Argo snagged the Best Picture Oscar for the studio in February. Iâ€ve learned that pre-production starts today [May 7] on Affleckâ€s adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel Live By Night with an eye to an August-September start date. So far only Affleck is cast. He also directs and produces as well as writes and stars in. […] This is Affleckâ€s second adaptation of a Lehane novel: Ben in 2007 made his directorial debut with the gripping Gone Baby Gone based on the mystery series written by the author.

I have not seen Gone Baby Gone nor have I read Lehane, so I don’t have much to add here. According to his IMDB page, Lehane has done some interesting film and television work in the past, including writing the novel Mystic River and writing several episodes of “The Wire”.

In something of an upset, Lahane’s Live by Night just 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 Coughlinâ€s rise from thief to gangster in the Prohibition Era.

Ben Affleck is no stranger to Savannah. About a decade ago, he bought a home on Hampton Island and was reported as recently as last October 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.