A new major movie was just filmed at Blue Jays' Rogers Centre
A new trailer for a major motion picture shot in Toronto debuted on Thursday, and there are plenty of local landmarks you’ll recognize in the first look at writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap.
One of the hottest writers/directors of the late ’90s and early 2000s, known for plot twist daggers like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, has now used Toronto as a stand-in for his hometown of Philadelphia — a recurring setting for his films.
This movie appears to almost entirely take place within the Toronto Blue Jays’ home field of Rogers Centre, which (along with interiors from Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre) serves as the backdrop for what will almost certainly be a rollercoaster plotline.
The film, which stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Toronto-born Allison Pill, centres around a father and teen daughter attending a pop concert, where things soon take a sinister turn as the pair realize the event is part of a trap to capture a dangerous criminal.
Familiar landmarks in the trailer include the Gardiner Expressway and other thoroughfares like Simcoe and Bremner (bearing Philadelphia road signs), the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, York University subway station, as well as the main event — the Rogers Centre — transformed into a venue known as “Tanaka Arena” with some Hollywood movie magic.
A new M. Night Shyamalan experience. @TrapTheMovie only in theaters this summer.
Listen to original songs from Saleka as Lady Raven: https://t.co/ii9tQANpgH pic.twitter.com/Ku1H3rdt02
— Warner Bros. Pictures (@wbpictures) April 18, 2024
For anyone not yet sold on a psychological thriller about a pop star performing in a sports stadium, the film’s leading star, Josh Hartnett, has described the movie as “very bizarre,” and “very dark.” So, do what you will with that information.
Trap was initially scheduled to shoot in Cincinnati, Ohio (which seems a more fitting stand-in for Philly than Toronto) but was forced to relocate production to Toronto due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Filming began last summer and concluded in October.
Trap will debut in theatres on August 9. Until then, it’s anyone’s guess what this movie’s big plot twist will be.
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