A little piece of Hollywood is coming to Columbus.
Columbus will be the film set to the independent movie “Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff,” said Robert Weinbach, the film’s producer and screenwriter. Weinbach and his wife have scouted and done some preliminary filming around town over Wednesday and Thursday, looking for locations for the movie.
Weinbach, with the help of staff from the Columbus Visitors Bureau, looked at locations on the Mississippi University for Women campus, Lion Hills Center and houses with Queen Anne-style architecture. The architecture around town is one of the many features that attracted Weinbach to Columbus.
“This town really has a wonderful complexion of not only being a small town but just being lovely, charming,” he said.
The story takes place in Independence, Kansas, so Weinbach was looking for a small college town with classic architecture. Columbus is “spot on,” he said Wednesday. He’s even considering rewriting one of the scenes to have it take place on the Riverwalk after having seen it.
The film could have a positive economic impact, as well as showcase the town in the future, said Nancy Carpenter, executive director of the CVB.
“We’re happy to work with them and we’re excited,” Carpenter said. “It will be a great opportunity for people who haven’t seen Columbus or don’t know much about Columbus.”
Mississippi’s film incentive program is one of the things that attracted Weinbach to the state to shoot the movie in the first place. The Mississippi Motion Picture Incentive Program provides cash rebates on certain expenditures on films made in the state, including a 25-percent rebate of whatever a production spends with local vendors and businesses.
But when Weinbach first began considering locations, he looked at Starkville. While the crew may do some shooting in Starkville, Weinbach said the primary location shooting will be in Columbus, which has the “perfect community feel” for this type of movie.
“The unsung character of any film is the location and the community,” he said.
The film is a contemporary version of the novel “Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff” by 20th century playwright and novelist William Inge. In the novel, the main character, high school teacher Evelyn Wyckoff, loses her job and is run out of town after having an affair with a young black janitor at her school. Weinbach called the novel an “important work of literary art by one of America’s greatest playwrights.”
Inge, who was a native of Kansas, even has his own Columbus connection in a roundabout way. He was the good friend of — and was mentored by — Columbus-born playwright Tennessee Williams.
Weinbach is a two-time winner of the Houston International Screenplay competition and the writer of films such as “Hallucination,” “Blind Man’s Bluff” and “The Freakmaker.”
Weinbach plans to work with local community theater groups in Columbus, Starkville and Tupelo for the production. He may import some specialists and equipment from Louisiana, a state with a slightly better infrastructure for filming, but community outreach is important to him.
“What we’re interested in is having as many Mississippians in this (movie) as possible,” he said.
Weinbach hopes to begin filming in late November or early December, though he added it depends on the availability of actors he wants to get for the major roles.
Filming could take place next spring, he said. Of course, he said, folks have warned him not to try to film in Columbus in the fall because he wouldn’t find available hotel rooms.
“We have been told … never try to do a movie in (Columbus) during football season,” he said.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.