New Yorkers tend to have a hilariously conflicted attitude toward film and television production in our fair city. On one hand we proudly point out movie landmarks to our visitors, mourned when Law & Order was cancelled and left our streets, and flip out when the tax incentives that bring those productions here are threatened. But when we're faced with the day-to-day realities of film productions we also get livid-- deliberately getting in the way of shoots, shouting at the PAs charged with wrangling pedestrians, and perhaps our favorite, complaining about the production trailers that block off parking spaces on all the streets surrounding even the smallest shoot.
Men In Black III, of course, is the opposite of a small shoot, and with the biggest movie star in the world on the set it also boasted the biggest personal trailer-- an entire semi-truck!-- anyone had ever seen, parked on the narrow streets of Soho. Local residents and business owners, like always, complained, and this time they won a victory against that meanie Will Smith. The New York Post, which course has been all over this story, snapped a photo of Smith's truly massive trailer being moved off the streets to a parking lot, just in time to get the bargain overnight rate for $10.14 an hour, plus tax. Smith will have to walk half a mile each way to his 53-foot double decker trailer, which apparently includes a personal gym and is nicknamed "The Heat." But according to the Post he's also got a $25,000-per-month apartment on Bond Street less than a mile away, so that's another option for lunch hour.
The Post article is filled with classic tabloidy details and snark, including this quote from a public safety committee chair: "Hardworking New Yorkers have a right to wake up in the morning and not find a cruise ship parked out in front of their house. This is New York, not Hollywood. We don't roll that way." Please click through for lots of New York City righteous indignation; their disappointingly small photo of the giant trailer is below.
