HAMILTON–Would-be superhero Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson) tries to save the world in Defendor, opening Feb. 19. And the place he wages his onscreen campaign isn't a sound stage in Los Angeles or on location in Toronto. It's in the gritty streets of Hamilton.
Thanks to a mix of favourable tax credits, an enthusiasm for making filmmakers welcome and a chameleon face that lets the city stand in for anywhere from the Middle East to Washington, D.C., the Hammer is turning a tidy profit making movies, TV shows and music videos. All of it, of course, amid a serious industry-wide downturn that has seen many Toronto film and TV workers idled.

While it may be a while before the city erects a Hammerwood sign on Hamilton Mountain, there were some 100 productions in the city in the past two years, including about 800 prep, shoot and wrap working days in 2009, says Hamilton's Film and Television Office manager, Jacqueline Norton.

That's not a fortune by any stretch – Norton says the city made $6.5 million in 2009 from production, compared to the $610.5 million for Toronto in 2008. But she's quick to point out that Toronto attracts more big-budget features than Hamilton, which does more smaller films, TV shows, music videos, student productions and commercials.

It's a start. Filmmakers and stars seem to like working in Steeltown. To say nothing of the civic pride Hamiltonians feel when they see Kevin Spacey downtown filming the thriller Casino Jack, due out later this year, or recognize their city on the big screen in scenes from Amelia, starring Hilary Swank, or the soon-to-be released sci-fi/horror Splice, with Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody.

"I absolutely love the aesthetic of that town," said Defendor director Peter Stebbings during the Toronto International Film Festival last September.

"It's not always pretty. In fact, it rarely is. But there are these beautiful places and the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When I go over the Skyway Bridge, I love that industrial, kind of post-apocalyptic landscape. You have the embankment there and it's just so stunning."
Stebbings says the Ontario Media Development Corporation tax credits for hiring local cast, crews and production services, coupled with an additional 10 per cent tax credits for shooting outside the GTA, lured him to Hamilton.

The incentives will help Hamilton in the long run now that the province has announced plans to make these tax credits permanent, meaning filmmakers can count on them while municipal and state governments in the U.S. can repeal incentives depending on which administration is in power.

"It's cheaper here overall," Norton added. "Parking is cheaper, overnight stays are cheaper and we understand from location managers that it's much easier to shoot here."
While Hamilton works as an effective stand-in – Detroit in Detroit Rock City, P.E.I. in Anne of Green Gables, and middle America for Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story – Stebbings would like to see the city play itself more.

"We're always dressing Hamilton up for other places," added Stebbings. "But you are starting to see a trickle of films where Hamilton is playing Hamilton."

Take Real Time, the 2008 movie starring Jay Baruchel as a down-on-his luck gambler and Randy Quaid as the hit man out to settle his boss's debt. Car radios play Top 10 Canadian hits from the 1970s, while the announcer counts down the hits in the Hammer.

"That movie is one of my favourites," Baruchel told the Star last year, adding part of his affection for the project was the Hamilton setting. "I absolutely love that movie."
The Internet Movie Database lists 327 productions shot in Hamilton, from TV series to such big-budget fare as The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, The Time Traveler's Wife and Hairspray.
(Hamilton seems to be the go-to place to shoot superhero movies. Besides Hulk and Defendor, parts of Kick-Ass, opening in April and starring Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse, were shot here.)

Unlike Toronto, where production trucks can often elicit grumbles and complaints about traffic tie-ups and neighbourhood disruptions, Hamilton residents still get excited about filming in their city, says Hamilton film liaison assistant Lorrie Bowman.

"People still enjoy knowing film is here," she said. "People call in to ask what's filming in their neighbourhood and where can they see it."

Stebbings said that spirit helped Hamilton work for his movie because "it's the perfect size. It's the small town, small hero-big heart type of thing."

But Norton says the city can also stand in for a variety of places.
"We're one of the oldest cities in Ontario and have the old building stock, an industrial landscape, water and hectares of forest," Norton points out. There are mansions, a castle, Westfield Heritage Village for period stories and a downtown that still has a '60s look in some spots.

And when required, industrial slag heaps can look just like sand dunes. That's how they were used in American Soldiers, a 2005 direct-to-DVD release in which downtown Hamilton stood in for an unnamed Iraqi town.

"What they looked for were flat-roofed buildings and they had a very narrow shot," explained Norton. "They had their palm tree and a Hummer and carried the palm tree around and made sure (it) was in the shot. And just outside of the camera view, there were Ti-Cat banners."
Downtown Hamilton also played 1960s Washington in Talk To Me, the biopic of radio personality and activist Ralph "Petey" Greene, starring Don Cheadle.

The city's industrial pedigree as a steel town and manufacturing centre makes it the go-to place for certain kinds of shoots, thanks to it its "Blade Runner-y" looks, according to Defendor co-star Kat Dennings.

"Write that down. I want them to know I think their town is Blade Runner-y," Dennings told the Star last year, referring to Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi drama set in a dystopian future. "It's that amazing thing with the smoke and all the fire, that fireball going up all the time."

Harrelson found the air quality rather suspect. "There's a pretty steady stream of smoke coming out the smokestacks and that's the kind of s--- that drives me crazy," Harrelson said, adding with a sly chuckle. "It's not the good smoke at all."

But he said he enjoyed shooting in "the Hammer" and spent some time finding out about where he was working.

"I was learning a lot about the history of Hamilton; people used to come up here, Cary Grant and these old movie stars back in the day and it was this incredible garden spot, beautiful. And then in came the steel and out went the natural, beautiful place."

The grittiness of modern Hamilton makes it a natural for certain kinds of shoots – for example, take the upcoming Movie Network/Movie Central series Living in Your Car, about a former corporate exec reduced to sleeping in his last vestige of his old wealth: a luxury sedan. The project, co-written by acclaimed Canadian scribe George F. Walker, made perfect sense for Steeltown, where it filmed last year. Yet Hamilton must up its game if it wants to lure more production.

Norton admits the lack of a high-end boutique hotel in the city means stars usually head back to Toronto to stay after a day's shooting, taking those dollars out of the city. And there's no studio space.