By Paula Vogler
The Brockton Enterprise
May 15, 2011
EAST BRIDGEWATER — It seems there is a silver lining to having a rundown and outdated high school.
People in Hollywood looking for a realistic setting for a movie may come knocking.
At East Bridgewater High School, site planners from Columbia Pictures paid a visit to see if the high school would be appropriate for some 1980s flashback scenes in an Adam Sandler film.
Sometime in June, film crews will arrive for three to seven days of filming and use a classroom, hallway and the lobby of the school.
“What we had here fit their vision,” Principal Paul Vieira said.
Because school will still be in session when the crew comes, Vieira said certain parts of the school would have to be shut down or isolated for the filming. He said it is not uncommon for the school to do that to create quiet for MCAS and AP testing.
“It’s easy to tell kids you can’t go down a hallway because a test is going on,” Vieira said. “It’s trickier to tell kids you can’t go down the hall because a movie is being filmed.”
Casting calls for extras could include some students from the high school who are at least 18 years old, since the film will need youthful-looking people for the scenes filmed in the school.
Vieira said he was told preferential placement would be given to East Bridgewater residents at the casting calls to happen this weekend on the Cape and North Shore.
He said no one has said who will be in the scenes filmed at the high school but with Sandler as the producer of the dark comedy about a father and son’s relationship, Sandler could be at the school.
While the unplanned site visit happened out of the blue and took everyone by surprise, Vieira said the scout lives and grew up in Massachusetts and may have been familiar with some of the towns and schools in the area.
The School Department is reviewing the contract it received, going over rental fees and the other conditions listed in it.
In conjunction with Superintendent Susan Cote, the School Committee will make the decisions on spending whatever money does come in for the rental.
Cote also said she would be meeting with Police Chief John Cowan to discuss what if any detours and road closures would be needed to facilitate the filming and how to accommodate the trailers and other things brought in for the film.