Actor Nicolas Cage and director Adam Sigal sit in rocking chairs on the lawn of a farmhouse on the outskirts of Stillwater.
They’re on the set of post-apocalyptic thriller “Parish,” in a quiet bubble away from the rest of the film’s hubbub — the video villages set up in the yard and living room, the handful of Hollywood producers buzzing around, the local grips monitoring wind and setting up a camera rig on the bed of a truck, the wardrobe and makeup trailers and the arrival of the dog actors.
For the umpteenth time on this sunny October day, Cage rises from the rocking chair, clad in his character’s khaki green jumpsuit and disappears down the farmhouse cellar stairs.
Sigal heads inside the 19th-century house and watches camera feeds of Cage and actor Alexandra Shipp (“X-Men: Apocalypse," “Straight Outta Compton”) act out a scene in the cellar below, a hint of their voices coming up through the floorboards. Sigal says the scene is about trust. As the titular character Parish, Cage leans back in a chair and peels an apple with a knife, telling Shipp’s character that his dogs can sense when someone is lying.
The film centers on Parish, who has survived an apocalyptic event and has isolated himself on this farm with a pack of dogs.
“He's on this farm, and he's built this big wall and fence to keep everyone out,” Sigal explained. “People show up at his gate and want to come in because there's these creatures outside, and he never lets anyone in until one day a woman shows up with an infant child. And he kind of breaks his rule about letting someone on, and then it leads to a bunch of chaos.”
As the film poster declares, “Some doors should never be opened.” It also features the farmhouse, a grizzled Cage, a mob of zombie-like creatures and dogs.
Trainers from Los Angeles will bring the dogs to set later — the Belgian Malinois named Nala (who also stars in “Fallout”), the pit bull-Bernese mountain dog puppies Remy and Goose, and probably a dozen others. Sigal is a dog lover.
“That was one of my biggest inspirations to make this movie, was just making a movie with a bunch of dogs,” Sigal said.
For Sigal, the film is his current thriller project, but for many of the producers and crew milling about, it’s a continuing proof of concept that Minnesota is a viable location for narrative filmmaking. The “Parish” set employs a mix of locals and professionals from around the country, from actors and grips to makeup artists and costume designers.
“That's good. That's what you want,” said Amile Wilson, a producer from Mississippi. “You want people hired locally, and then you want to bring some talent in to get some diversity of skill.” Wilson will be back in Minnesota to shoot a film with another A-list actor in early 2027.
Producer and casting director, Jordan Connor, a Vancouver native who played “Sweet Pea” in “Riverdale," recently relocated to Minnesota.
“For movies.”
For … movies?
“For movies,” confirmed Connor. “Oh yeah, for a couple.”
He’s one of the founders of Minnesota Film Studios, along with Minnesota natives Justin Dobies and Brianna Lee Johnson.
“We started Minnesota Film Studios as a service production company to help attract other larger films to Minnesota and then help service them and connect them to the local talent that they need,” said Dobies.
Dobies is also serving as the stunt double for Cage on “Parish” (and he’s acted in shows “Broad City,” “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and the miniseries “Obi-Wan Kenobi”). Originally from Minnesota, Dobies recently moved back from Los Angeles.
“With wealth distribution in America, it's so hard to make a middle-class living as an artist,” Dobies said. “Minnesota, by all these measures of quality of life and all these different things, is a great place. If we can successfully bring these bigger productions to Minnesota, it allows more local Minnesotan filmmakers and actors and writers to actually have a sustained career in the arts that allows them to have a quality living.”
Johnson, who is originally from Edina, scouted the 320-acre, 100-year-old farm outside Stillwater known as White Oaks Farm, owned by David Washburn.
“It’s the texture of the house,” Johnson said, and the site “has these cool outbuildings. The landscape is gorgeous.”
The producers say they’re betting on Minnesota attracting more filmmaking.
In 2021, Minnesota began a film tax credit incentive of 25 percent on film projects that expend at least $1 million during a consecutive 12-month period. The local film industry wants to see that expanded.
“We've seen how Atlanta really blew up and had this massive infrastructure with Marvel and all these big projects that came there, and now Minnesota is poised to become one of the next great hubs, especially if this tax credit passes,” Connor said.
Producer and writer Abdi Mohamed, who is also on set, serves on the board of the Minnesota Film Alliance, a trade advocacy nonprofit whose members include Minnesota Film Studios. Mohamed and the alliance are pushing lawmakers to raise the base tax credit to 40 percent and lower the minimum eligible spending to $300,000 for film and television projects, changes they say would make Minnesota more competitive with states such as Illinois.
“This really brings a lot of eyes to Minnesota,” Mohamed said of a Nicolas Cage film shooting in Minnesota. “Often people will talk about the heyday of this industry in Minnesota – ‘Fargo,’ ‘The Mighty Ducks.’”
Films like “Parish” and a higher tax incentive could usher in another heyday, Mohamed said.
“It’s really important to have people like Brianna, Jordan and Justin, who have lived in L.A. and want to build that here,” Mohamed said. “I think Hollywood is in a moment of change. You can have your film backdrop be your hometown.”
“Parish” wraps filming on Thursday. Sigal says he expects the film to be in theaters in the summer or fall of 2027. Producers say they hope there will be a Minnesota premiere.
Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) is a public radio network for the US state of Minnesota. With its three services, MPR News, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest.
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