Anne Hathaway, who grew up in Millburn, returned to New Jersey for the second time in a few months to shoot her latest film.
Anne Hathaway’s “Eileen” has been filmed in several Garden State locations in recent weeks. The production is based on a 2015 book by Ottessa Moshfegh that is often compared to “Gone Girl”, another novel adapted into a film with Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.
“Eileen”, set in the 1960s, has been adapted for the big screen by “The Girl on the Train” screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson. The film crew set up shop in Metuchen just before Christmas to film various scenes, transforming sections of Main Street and even creating some artificial snow. Metuchen Mayor Jonathan Busch uploaded to Twitter on the production, which moved to South Amboy last week.
Per My Central Jersey, Hathaway and company closed Lagoda’s Saloon on South Broadway for several days to shoot the film. Steven Gorelik, executive director of the New Jersey Film and Television Commission, told the show that “Eileen” has also made scenes in Paramus, Jersey City, Sandy Hook and Cranford, with filming scheduled for Westfield later this month. .
The film itself revolves around a 20-year-old woman working in a boy jail just outside Boston. It is produced by Searchlight Pictures and is scheduled to be released in about a year.
“Eileen” is the second Hathaway film recently shot in Garden State, as the actress shot “Armageddon Now” around Thanksgiving in Jersey City, Teaneck and Bayonne. The film co-stars two-time Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Strong of “Succession.”
New Jersey may partly attribute the increase in travel to the 2018 Garden State Film and Digital Media Jobs Act, which provides film tax credit credit of up to 35 percent.
Aside from that policy, Jersey City recently hosted the state-owned film studio last summer, and several other facilities have been approved or planned. Nexflix also announced last year that it would bid on a 289-acre site in Fort Monmouth, with the intention of building a new production campus on land.
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