‘2021 looks good’ for Illinois filming industry after productions delayed for months because of COVID
Chicago and Illinois officials gathered at an Englewood soundstage with “South Side” co-creator Bashir Salahuddin on Feb. 18 to announce 2019 had been a banner year for local filming with an estimated $560 million economic impact. A month later, the Chicago Film Office stopped issuing permits because of the coronavirus.
“We were stopped in our tracks from March until, effectively, August,” Illinois Film Office Director Peter Hawley said in a Tribune interview.
“In August, ‘Fargo’ came back. They had to finish the final couple of episodes of ‘Fargo,’ and that was our big trial balloon to see if we could do it safely and make it all work out. It sure enough did. But in that interim, we — the city and the state — worked very hard with the industry and our respective departments of public health on coming up with guidelines for safe shooting, safe production, safe practices. And that is actually, to me, one of the highlights of the year — of a rather down year — the hard work everyone did in making production work safely.”
The first hint of trouble came in early March, when it was reported that a crew member on Fox’s “NeXt” tested positive for the coronavirus. The TV drama was based at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios, home also to Fox’s “Empire” and the NBC series “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago Med” and “Chicago P.D.” The production shutdown meant the trio of NBC shows saw shortened seasons, and the team behind “Empire” didn’t film its intended series finale.
Some reality TV producers had their Chicago-area stars film themselves quarantining at home in the spring for shows such as Lifetime’s “Married at First Sight” and TLC’s “Smothered.” But TV commercials were the first productions to resume, in June, under the new guidelines. Chicago filming protocol includes practicing social distancing on sets; limiting groups of cast and crew in confined spaces to 50 individuals; wearing protective gear when possible; and regular testing of cast and crew members.
Hawley and Chicago Film Office Director Kwame Amoaku said they haven’t cracked down on productions for not following guidelines. The teams behind “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago Med” briefly stopped filming in the fall because of positive coronavirus tests.
“We are compiling test results from the productions. We’re finding that their test positivity rate is somewhere between 1.5 and 2%, compared to the 12% of the state, so we feel like they’re doing a great job with their testing and their contact tracing and isolation. The fact that their crew members are tested on a regular basis, it really helps to control any type of potential outbreak,” Amoaku told the Tribune in an interview.
“People are very conscious of the serious ramifications for health and safety and then for the industry, so everyone is really taking these protocols extremely seriously. We haven’t had any problems with anyone flouting the rules or not following the protocols properly.”
Besides the NBC first-responder shows and FX’s “Fargo,” the Fox pilot “The Big Leap,” the NBC pilot “Ordinary Joe,” the Freeform pilot “Single Drunk Female” and the Disney Channel movie “Christmas Again” have filmed in the Chicago area in recent months. “Judge Mathis” also resumed production at NBC Tower. “They did it right,” Hawley said about the daytime court show. “They did it with a studio audience that was socially distant, and the judge and the bailiff had plexiglass in front of them.”
“The Batman” — the Robert Pattinson film that has been primarily shooting in England — filmed exterior scenes in the Loop in October. Fans gathered to catch a glimpse of Batman on a motorcycle, but Amoaku said “the crowds that we got there were pretty small, and we were very satisfied with that. But we definitely keep an eye on that. We utilize the (Chicago Police Department) as well as production staff in order to keep crowds from forming” at outdoor filming sites.
Other teams opted not to film their projects in the Chicago area this year, and representatives for the various TV networks declined to confirm timelines for when production would begin since the pandemic is ongoing. Among the shows that were supposed to start filming here in 2020: AMC’s “61st Street” and the second seasons of Showtime’s “Work in Progress” and Comedy Central’s “South Side.” The cast of the Showtime series “Shameless” typically films exterior scenes in Chicago each season, but may not return for the 11th and final season.
Looking ahead, Showtime’s Chicago drama “The Chi” was renewed for a fourth season that has not started filming yet. Netflix’s “Emily in Paris” — which briefly filmed in Chicago in 2019 — got a second season. The “Emporia” pilot, filmed last year in southwest suburban Lockport, has been picked up to series by HBO and renamed “Somebody Somewhere.”
Other shows that filmed in Chicago won’t be back. “NeXt,” HBO’s “Run” and Amazon’s “Utopia” were canceled. New seasons of “Fargo,” Netflix’s “Tiny Pretty Things” and HBO’s “Lovecraft Country” have not been announced, and it’s unclear if the shows would return to Chicago if they are renewed.
Nevertheless, Chicago studio space is filling up. Cinespace president Alex Pissios said his facilities will be full for 2021, and he is looking to expand.
“We have a number of episodic shows that will be coming to town, hopefully putting down roots and creating jobs for a long, extended period of time. We also are looking to draw more feature film work to the city,” Amoaku said. “There’s a push to add more film production infrastructure to the city, more soundstages to increase our capacity. That’s something that we’ll be working hard on in 2021.”
Hawley said there’s support for new studio space outside of the Chicago area too. “I know that there have been groups in the Illinois Quad Cities that are very aggressively trying to build studio space, and there is a group in Rockford that is very aggressively trying to build some studio space. Most of those cities have airports, which will help quite a bit. But certainly in and around Chicago, there’s a lot of talk about studio creation,” he said.
The 2020 numbers haven’t been calculated yet, but Hawley said to expect “approximately half of what we did in 2019.” He doesn’t believe Illinois lost out on productions to places with looser coronavirus protocols. “I don’t think we missed out on anything. I know the phone is ringing, and 2021 looks good.”
