A new movie version of Nico Walker’s 2018 novel Cherry has just said hello to Cleveland.
Directors Anthony and Joseph Russo are best known for their work on movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and this year’s Avengers: Endgame. But once upon a time, they helmed much smaller, quieter films, such as 2002’s Welcome to Collinwood, a heist comedy featuring William H. Macy and Sam Rockwell, which was set in the Russo brothers’ native Cleveland. It was filmed in that city, too, which gave it an authenticity that filming in, say, Canada would have lacked.
The Russos are returning to their small-film roots, and their hometown, to shoot an adaptation of Cherry, according to Crain’s Cleveland Business. The novel tells the tale of a heroin-addicted Iraq War veteran with PTSD who becomes a bank robber; Walker, like Cherry’s narrator, served in Iraq, became addicted to heroin, and robbed banks. Kirkus called the book “a bleak tale told bluntly with an abundance of profanity but also of insight into two kinds of living hell.” The film will star Tom Holland, who plays Spider-Man in the MCU films, and is planned for release in 2020.
The movie began filming in Cleveland on Oct. 3, according to a blog post by the Cleveland Film Commission, which quoted the Russos: “As Cleveland natives ourselves, it means a lot to us to be able to film in our hometown.”
As the Crain’s story points out, the brothers’ plan for on-location shooting was scrapped a few months ago when the Ohio legislature seemed poised to get rid of its film-production tax-incentive program. This didn’t happen, in the end, and the program received $40 million in funding—thus saving Cherry from what befell director Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix, whose phony-looking New York City was filmed in Montreal.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
