After a COVID-19 testing site located at Los Angeles’ busy Union Station rail hub was set to close Dec. 1 for filming on the She’s All That remake, Mayor Eric Garcetti stepped in late Monday night to make sure it will remain open.
On Monday evening, Ktown For All, a Koreatown homeless advocacy group, tweeted that it had received notice from Curative, the operators of the testing site, that the Union Station testing kiosk was canceling all appointments for Tuesday because of an event at the site.
News of the prospective closure of the Union Station testing kiosk came just as coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County spike, hitting more than 5,000 on the same day new stay-at-home restrictions came into effect.
In the middle of a horrible and terrifying COVID spike, LA just cancelled all of its Dec 1 appointments at Union Station (one of the only transit-accessible facilities) with less than 24hrs notice because of A FILM SHOOT!! @MayorOfLA @metrolosangeles @lapublichealth WTF???!!??? pic.twitter.com/zwR36TH4G4
— Ktown for All 💜❤ (@KtownforAll) December 1, 2020
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the event in question is production on Miramax’s He’s All That, a gender-swapped reimagining of the 1999 teen rom-com that starred Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook. The movie was granted a filming permit for Union Station by FilmLA, the body that coordinates filming permits in Los Angeles, with the shoot set to involve some exterior and interior shots, with the total cast and crew numbering around 170.
FilmLA maintains that it and the film’s location production teams were unaware of a virus testing site operating at Union Station and that they had nothing to do with the closure of the testing kiosk. The decision to cancel testing appointments at the site appears to have come from Curative. THR has reached out to Curative for comment.
Sources told THR that when made aware of the closure, reps from the film production offered to work with Union Station to accommodate testing on Dec. 1, as there was a feeling that both production and testing could continue based on the location at the station and production’s desire to make it work.
Late Monday, amid confusion as well as a fierce social media backlash over the late-notice closure, Mayor Garcetti tweeted a clarification that the site will now remain open for those with appointments Tuesday. “Working with @LAFD, @Curative & @MetroLosAngeles, my team has worked to reopen testing at Union Station on Tuesday. The 504 Angelenos who were scheduled for a test there can visit the kiosk as originally planned or any of the other 14 City sites, where we offer 38K tests daily,” Garcetti tweeted.
Directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Mr. Popper’s Penguins), He’s All That stars TikTok sensation Addison Rae and Cobra Kai breakout Tanner Buchanan. Myra Molloy, Madison Pettis, Peyton Meyer, Isabella Crovetti and Annie Jacob also star. The script is by She’s All That scribe R. Lee Fleming Jr.
Deadline was first to report the shutdown of the Union Station testing kiosk.
Dec. 1, 1:13 a.m. Updated with the announcement from Garcetti.
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