Red Dawn II

Burned out upside down car in the street. Did the Tigers win another World Series??? Actually, it's just those Red Dawn movie dudes blowing up props on Michigan Avenue.

The set was empty (although a few hundred extras were milling about on Woodward Avenue), so we wandered about without impedence.

Fake propaganda was tacked up everywhere....

Red Dawn in Detroit

Filming of Red Dawn II has officially commenced in the Central Business District of the D.

In the distance is the set for one of the movie's Big Scenes, where the American generals meet the foreign generals.

A closer view of the set.

The camera boom was moving all around and people were yelling "Action!" and "Cut!" Getting some exterior shots before the extras arrived, perhaps?

Extras hanging around waiting for their cue.


More extras, heading towards the set for the Big Scene.

Chinese Democracy

Here's something you don't see everyday downtown in the D.... a Chinese army banner being hung from the Griswold/Lafayette parking garage. The P-O-L-I-C-E lettering is also new... and fake, all prep work for the remake of Red Dawn, a 1984 cheesy popcorn yarn about a foreign invasion on U.S soil. Very real in the background is the Lafayette Building (in the left) in early stages of demolition; could Hollywood ask for a better backdrop than Detroit for a movie searching for a bombed zone landscape?

The area south of Campus Martius is readying for the movie's big battle scene, or so insiders (the people standing around) tell us. 800 extras wearing Chinese army surplus garb will be running around with fake machine guns. Tanks will roll down Shelby and Griswold. Huge explosions will rock the streets and the resistance will take positions behind sandbag barriers. Stay tuned, kids, and we'll try to get more.