Entertainment

Netflix is casting extras for a new movie in Boston

The movie will begin filming in November.

By Kevin Slane

October 7, 2020

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Even as movie releases are delayed and theater chains close their doors, the show must go on in Massachusetts.

Netflix is gearing up to film a movie in Boston this fall, and the company is seeking extras for a shoot set to begin in mid-November.

Casting director Judith Bouley posted the listing on her company website last week, seeking “people of all ages, sizes, and ethnicities to potentially work as paid background actors.”

Bouley, who also recently did casting for Adam Sandler’s Netflix comedy “Hubie Halloween,” told WBZ-TV that casting will be conducted over Zoom from her offices in Los Angeles due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Bouley, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, wouldn’t reveal the movie’s name to WBZ, only saying that it was “a stunning script, it’s huge, and our stars are unbelievable”

Many signs point to the casting call being for “Don’t Look Up,” a new comedy from director Adam McKay (“Anchorman,” “The Big Short”) starring Jennifer Lawrence and Cate Blanchett.

Lawrence plays an astronomer who, along with a professor, discovers that an asteroid is on a collision course for earth, only to find that no one will take their dire warnings of impending doom seriously.

“Don’t Look Up” was originally set to begin production in April and be released on Netflix in December, but was delayed by the coronavirus. The production has already hired several local film professionals for key behind-the-scenes roles like location manager and set designer, further increasing the likelihood that Bouley’s casting call is for “Don’t Look Up.”

McKay acknowledged the timeliness of the film’s end-of-days plot in a March interview with Rolling Stone.

“We were scouting a new movie in Boston when this whole coronavirus thing hit,” McKay said. “And the movie is about an asteroid that’s gonna hit Earth and destroy the Earth, and the two scientists who discovered it. … The whole idea is that the President doesn’t understand the science and kind of soft-sells it and the urgency is kind of lost. And so these two scientists have to go on a media tour and kind of get caught up in the social media vortex and TV shows, and they’re just trying to say that, ‘Hey, we’re all gonna die.'”