Toll road a popular movie spot
A toll road long touted by politicians as the path to an economic turnaround for the region seemingly is becoming a highway to Hollywood. Filmmakers are preparing to use a section of the Mon/Fayette Expressway, also known as Route 43, as the backdrop for a scene in a movie for the second time in as many months.
As a result, a section of Route 43 in Washington County will experience traffic delays today and Tuesday.
Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission officials said the delays will be caused by traffic control while crews film a scene from the movie “Love and Other Drugs.”
The film, slated for release next year, stars Anne Hathaway, Jake Gyllenhaal and Hank Azaria and focuses on a salesman as he competes in the cutthroat pharmaceutical industry to try and sell a male performance-enhancement drug.
The movie is based on the memoir “Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman” by Jamie Reidy.
According to Tom Fox, public relations director of the Turnpike Commission, motorists
will encounter 15-minute stoppages on the toll road between the exits for Coyle Curtain Road and Route 136 as film crew’s work to get the shots they need on the stretch of highway.
“They are going to do something called a rolling shoot and will cycle between the two exits on the expressway,” Fox said. “They are going to be filming from a helicopter. They are bringing 40 to 50 vehicles. It is a big production.”
Additionally, the state police will escort traffic traveling on the expressway between the mainline toll plaza at the junction with Interstate 70 and the Coyle Curtain Road exit.
Fox said intermittent traffic stoppages, northbound and southbound, are planned beginning around 7 a.m. today and could run until 5 p.m. Similar traffic patterns are expected Tuesday as filming resumes.
Last month, filmmakers purchased the use of the Uniontown-to-Brownsville link of the Mon/Fayette Expressway to film a thriller set for release in 2011.
The movie, “The Next Three Days,” stars Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson. The film will feature a tollbooth and portion of the highway along the Uniontown-to-Brownsville section. The southbound lanes of the expressway were closed for 24 hours while the filming occurred.
Fox said the Turnpike Commission negotiated a fee with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. for exclusive use of the southbound lanes of the toll road in Fayette County. The film group agreed to pay $25,000, which Fox said included lost toll revenue and expenses for state police, fire and emergency medical services.
Fox said Friday that a similar deal was struck with 20th Century Fox for the movie being filmed today.
“Basically, it is the same deal,” Fox said. “The production company is required to reimburse us for the expenses, lost toll revenue, maintenance workers and state police and EMS services.”
“Love and Other Drugs” is being directed by Edward Zwick who has produced and directed acclaimed films including “Shakespeare in Love,” “Legends of the Fall,” “Blood Diamond” and “Traffic.”
“The Next Three Days” is being directed by Paul Haggis and is an adaptation of the 2008 French Film, Pour Elle. In the movie, Crowe will play a teacher whose wife (Banks) is arrested and convicted of a murder she says she did not commit. He then comes up with a desperate plan to free her.