Filmmakers, actors and locals reflect on the most notable films shot in Sarasota and Manatee counties
A circus big top housing high drama, a hotbed of government corruption and murderous get-rich schemes, and the start to a bikini-clad crime spree — Sarasota-Manatee’s played them all onscreen over the years.
Since the silent movie era, Florida has lured filmmakers to the Sunshine State with its camera-ready tropical locations. Sarasota-Manatee is no exception, with its plentiful beaches and waterfronts, ornate mansions and vestiges of Old Florida.
The area’s biggest production to date remains 1952’s “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Cecil B. DeMille’s extravagant love letter to the circus. The film dazzled locals with its star-studded cast including Charlton Heston and Betty Hutton and its downtown Sarasota parade scene, and went on to be a nationwide box-office smash and Best Picture Oscar winner.
No film made here in the next few decades came near that level, though there were some intriguing curios like “Midnight Cowboy” director John Schlesinger’s road-trip comedy “Honky Tonk Freeway” or the acclaimed adaptation of Sarasota author John D. MacDonald’s novel “A Flash of Green.”
Then in the late ’90s, Sarasota-Manatee experienced the excitement and bustle of a major Hollywood production again when the films “Great Expectations” and “Palmetto” came to town, bringing stars like Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Woody Harrelson and Elisabeth Shue. Five years later, Denzel Washington visited Manatee and Charlotte counties while making the thriller “Out of Time.”
Those were the last blockbusters to shoot mainly in Sarasota-Manatee, though some big-budget films still visited for partial shoots. Those included Harmony Korine’s surreal St. Pete-set crime film “Spring Breakers,” which shot in Sarasota along with the Jason Statham thriller “Parker.”
Since Florida ended its film tax incentives program in 2016, big-budget productions have largely abandoned the Sunshine State altogether, even those that take place here. Ben Affleck’s Ybor City-set gangster film “Live by Night,” which also partially takes place on Longboat Key, headed to Georgia instead.
Yet as the surprise Best Picture win for the Miami indie drama “Moonlight” demonstrated, smaller-scale films can still make a big splash nationally. That includes the Sarasota-shot “Dark Night,” which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2016.
Dating back over six decades, here’s the backstory on the biggest movies to be made in Sarasota-Manatee.
“The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952)
When renowned “Samson and Delilah” director Cecil B. DeMille decided to make his next epic film about the circus, he and some of Hollywood’s biggest stars headed to Sarasota, then the winter quarters for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Taking its name from the circus’ famous tagline, “The Greatest Show on Earth” starred Charlton Heston as a circus manager, Betty Hutton as his trapeze artist girlfriend and Cornel Wilde as another aerialist who she develops feelings for. The cast also included Dorothy Lamour as an iron-jaw performer, Gloria Grahame as an elephant girl and James Stewart as a clown. (Only Stewart didn’t film any scenes here.)
Joining them were real-life Ringling Bros. circus performers and Sarasota residents such as iconic clowns Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs, as well as circus president John Ringling North, playing himself. And to create the film’s throng of circus fans, around 3,000 locals were hired as extras.
About half of the movie was filmed in Sarasota during a six-week shoot in early 1951. Much of that took place at Ringling Bros.’ winter quarters, located near where Bobby Jones Golf Club is today.
An extravagant circus parade scene at the end of the film was shot in downtown Sarasota, with past Sarasota landmarks like Palmer First National Bank and Oleander Ice Cream visible in the background. An estimated crowd of 65,000 to 100,000 came out to see the film’s stars and a cavalcade of animals including elephants and lions in the parade.
The stars in town caused a great deal of excitement throughout the shoot. When Lamour arrived by train to Sarasota, the Herald-Tribune reported it “required three husky policemen several minutes” to move her a few feet past “a seething mob of male, female and juvenile bobby-soxers, camera fans and autograph hunters.”
The film returned to town a year later for a premiere at Sarasota Opera House, then known as Florida Theater. The festivities included another circus parade down downtown’s Main Street drawing tens of thousands of spectators, with elephants and a convertible carrying Kelly and Florida Gov. Fuller Warren among the procession.
“The Greatest Show on Earth” went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1952 and win two Oscars, including Best Picture.
“Great Expectations” (1998)
Before Alfonso Cuarón won two Best Director Oscars for “Gravity” and “Roma,” he made “Great Expectations,” Sarasota’s most star-studded production since “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
The modern reimagining of Charles Dickens’ classic stars Ethan Hawke as the protagonist, Robert De Niro as a convict he saved as a child, Anne Bancroft as a wealthy recluse whose home he frequently visits and Gwyneth Paltrow as her niece that Hawke falls for. The film updates the novel’s locations from London and Kent to New York City and Sarasota-Manatee.
The Manatee County fishing village of Cortez serves as the town that Hawke and Paltrow grow up in. Meanwhile, John and Mable Ringling’s Sarasota winter home of the Ca’ d’Zan portrays Paradiso Perduto, the decaying mansion where Bancroft lives.
Heidi Taylor, an associate registrar who’s worked for 29 years at The Ringling that houses Ca’ d’Zan, said the timing was ideal, as the mansion was preparing for restoration and had its furniture in storage. So the film began the process of transforming it into a decrepit property, adding props like a crashed chandelier on the floor and an abandoned piano outside, along with sullying the interior and exterior.
“They sprayed the outside of the Ca’ d’Zan with a protective layer,” Taylor said. “Then they dirtied that covering and fake ivy and Spanish moss and all kinds of stuff, all over the outside of it. Then afterwards it was pressure-washed off, so it was pretty amazing.”
The movie stars’ presence caused a big buzz in town. Along with the cast, Bancroft’s husband Mel Brooks and Paltrow’s then-boyfriend Brad Pitt also visited Sarasota, with Pitt reportedly leaving a tour of the Ca’ d’Zan impressed.
The film also brought a national spotlight to Sarasota-Manatee, including a theatrical trailer with multiple glimpses of Ca’ d’Zan. The movie’s final scene features Hawke and Paltrow together on the mansion’s terrace overlooking Sarasota Bay.
Despite its A-list talent, “Great Expectations” came out in 1998 to mixed reviews and no major awards attention. Cuarón returned to his native Mexico for his next film “Y Tu Mamá También,” with it and every feature he’s made since either winning or being nominated for Oscars.In an interview with the Herald-Tribune during a 2017 visit to Ringling College of Art and Design, Hawke said making the film was challenging, but also fascinating for the chance to work with a future filmmaker great in Cuarón.
“He really pissed me off because we had such a bad time making that movie, then he went off and made ‘Y Tu Mamá También’ right after,” Hawke said. “I called him up afterwards, ‘Why is the next movie you make brilliant, and the one you made with me flawed?’”
“Palmetto” (1998)
Fresh off recent Oscar nominations, Woody Harrelson and Elisabeth Shue headed to Sarasota-Manatee in 1997 to make the Florida neo-noir “Palmetto.”
Set in the fictional town of Palmetto — not the Manatee County city of the same name — the film stars Harrelson as a reporter framed for a crime after uncovering city council corruption and Shue as a femme fatale who recruits him for a scheme once he’s released from prison. Gina Gershon, Chloe Sevigny and Michael Rapaport co-star, with the filmmaker of the Oscar-winning “The Tin Drum” Volker Schlondorff directing.
Perhaps the most recognizable onscreen location is historic downtown Sarasota bar Gator Club, used as a local watering hole where Harrelson and Shue meet for the first time.
Gator Club’s then-owner Ernie Ritz, who sold the bar in 2005, said the film’s crew chose it because they considered it the most authentic Florida bar they could find. Several changes were nonetheless made to Gator Club before filming, including adding a phone booth, pool table and window blinds.
The shoot took four days, with Shue leaving in a limousine every day after filming, Ritz said. But Harrelson, not unlike the “Cheers” bartender character Woody that made him famous, would hang around the bar for hours.
“He would talk to everybody that wanted to talk to him,” Ritz said. “He autographed a baby’s diaper, he autographed girls’ T-shirts, he autographed whatever you gave him. He was one hell of a great guy. After a while, everyone just referred to him as, ‘Hey, Woody!’ as though we were old friends.”
Pelican Shore Cottages on Manasota Key in Englewood also plays a prominent role in the film, serving as a retreat for Harrelson where he has rendezvouses with Shue and Sevigny. Anna Maria City Pier, Manatee County Courthouse and a Casey Key residence were among the other filming locations.
“Palmetto” received a lukewarm critical and commercial response when it hit theaters nationwide. Perhaps its greatest cultural footprint remains at Gator Club, which has a display with film shoot photographs on its wall and the wooden blinds still on its windows.
“Woody Harrelson put those blinds in,” Ritz said. “Best gift I ever got.”
“Out of Time” (2003)
Just months after winning the Best Actor Oscar in 2002 for playing corrupt L.A. cop Alonzo in “Training Day,” Denzel Washington hopped from the West Coast to Florida’s sunny Gulf Coast to film “Out of Time.”
He reunited with his “Training Day” co-star Eva Mendes and “Devil in a Blue Dress” director Carl Franklin for the thriller. Washington played police chief Matt, estranged from his detective wife (Mendes) and having an affair with the married Ann (Sanaa Lathan). But when Ann and her husband appear dead in a fire and the evidence points to Matt, he must cover his tracks and find the real culprit.
Multiple Florida locations were used to create the fictional town of Banyan Key, where the movie is set. Those included Cortez, with a dock in Cortez Cove Marina transformed into Matt’s sea shack home.
The house is seen multiple times in the movie, including the final scene with an aerial shot soaring over the water. Karen Bell, an owner of Cortez’s A.P. Bell and Star Fish Company as well as the marina, said the dock used to be a net camp where fishermen would store their cotton nets.
“It was amazing how quickly they did it,” Bell said of the shack’s construction. “Of course, it wasn’t built to code or anything, it was just slapped together. But it looked great, it just looked very authentic and real.”
In between filming scenes, Bell said Washington would fish by a fuel dispenser on the docks near A.P. Bell and Star Fish.
“He liked to catch sheepshead,” Bell said. “My uncle went out and spoke with him and he had no clue who he was, and just sat there and talked. Real low-key, they said he was really nice.”
The movie also filmed at The Fishery restaurant in Placida in Charlotte County, and Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island, with the film’s opening scene featuring the sign for Temptation Restaurant in Boca Grande.
“Out of Time” hit theaters a year later and proved moderately successful critically and commercially, opening at No. 2 in its opening weekend behind “School of Rock.” The shack has since been dismantled, but the dock is still there.
“Honky Tonk Freeway” (1981)
Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger’s most famous film, “Midnight Cowboy,” ended with a road trip to Florida. Then a decade later, he made a movie where that was the entire premise, which ended up being a historic box-office bomb.
“Honky Tonk Freeway” centers on a fictional Florida town called Ticlaw, featuring a safari park that boasts a water-skiing elephant named Bubbles. The mayor (William Devane) attempts to pay officials off to get a Ticlaw freeway exit that would draw more tourist traffic, but is unsuccessful.
From there, it follows a sprawling cast of characters headed to Florida, including an aspiring children’s book author (Beau Bridges), a woman transporting her mother’s ashes in an urn (Beverly D’Angelo) and an elderly couple planning their retirement (Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn). Their paths finally intersect when Ticlaw’s mayor, in a desperate last gambit, blows up an overpass.
Most of the Ticlaw scenes were shot in the central Florida city of Mount Dora, but the movie’s two most remarkable stunts were filmed here. An overpass of a then-under-construction Interstate 75 in the Fruitville area of Sarasota was detonated. Then in the movie’s final scene, a truck carrying safari animals accidentally jumps over the blown-up overpass, causing a pile-up and releasing the animals.
In an interview with the Herald-Tribune in July while filming the movie “Acting: The First Six Lessons” in Sarasota, Bridges said his main memory of “Honky Tonk Freeway” was sitting on a freeway with D’Angelo in “hot as hell” 100 degree weather.
“They shut down one whole side of the freeway and they had wild animals out on the freeway, rhinos and lions and crap,” Beau said. “But what they forgot to do was shut down and control the other side of the freeway, so you had people rubbernecking and looking at all this craziness happening.”
Such stunts proved costly, with the film’s budget estimated at $24 million plus at least $5 million in marketing, according to the New York Times. When it was released nationwide in August 1981, it struggled to make back $2 million, leading the Times to call it “the unquestionable commercial disaster of the summer.”
Reviews were also generally negative, but the film has since found a cult following, including with Floridians proud of this piece of their history. Bridges called it “a bizarre movie,” but enjoyed working with Schlesinger, calling him “one of our better ones.”
“A Flash of Green” (1984)
After starring in “The Right Stuff,” Ed Harris visited Sarasota-Manatee for “A Flash of Green.” Based on the novel by Sarasota literary luminary John D. MacDonald, it was also made by one of Florida’s most acclaimed filmmakers.
Victor Nunez, who later directed the Florida-set movies “Ulee’s Gold” and “Ruby in Paradise” and currently teaches film at Florida State University, had MacDonald suggested to him by his production partner Sam Gowan, who worked at University of Florida’s library where the author’s collection resides.
Harris stars as Jimmy Wing, a newspaper reporter in the fictional Palm City. County commissioner Elmo Bliss (Richard Jordan) wants to develop on Grassy Bay and bribes Jimmy for his help. Though Jimmy initially agrees, his relationship with a woman (Blair Brown) opposing the development and threats other environmental activists begin to receive trouble him.
The movie filmed in several Sarasota-Manatee locations such as Casey Key and Cortez. Sarasota restaurant Waffle Shop (now Waffle Stop) acts as a diner where characters meet, while Sarasota County Courthouse served as the setting for the commission meetings.
It also employed local actors in prominent roles, including Asolo Repertory Theatre veteran Isa Thomas, who played scientist Doris. Actual county commissioners and other state politicians even agreed to play commissioners, in an example of the film shoot’s heavy community involvement.
“Doing a movie was a novelty,” Nunez said. “I just thought we were local filmmakers having a good time, but because we had Ed Harris and Blair Brown and Richard Jordan, we ended up having to have a press conference for everybody. (Wayne) Mixson, who was lieutenant governor at the time, he flew his helicopter down there to come and visit on the set.”
“A Flash of Green” played film festivals like Toronto and Cannes before airing on television in 1986 as part of the PBS anthology series “American Playhouse.” IFC did a restoration of the film about a decade ago, which currently remains limited to theatrical screenings.
Those who praised the film included Roger Ebert and the New York Times’ Vincent Canby, as well as MacDonald before his death in 1986. The author, whose novel “The Executioners” was filmed as “Cape Fear” in 1962 and 1991, attended a Sarasota premiere. According to Gowan, MacDonald said it was the best film based on his writing he’d seen.
“This was a very emotional, I think, novel for John, and it’s strangely timely,” Nunez said. “John was no tree-hugger, but he was passionate about what he felt was just this blind destruction of the very reason that people were there.”
“Spring Breakers” (2013)
Before partying in Pinellas County for Harmony Korine’s Florida crime film “Spring Breakers,” Disney stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens first made a stop in Sarasota.
Gomez and Hudgens, along with “Pretty Little Liars” star Ashley Benson and Harmony’s wife Rachel Korine, play four college students desperate to go on spring break. Their debauchery becomes increasingly criminal when they cross paths with drug dealer and rapper Alien (James Franco.)
Sarasota plays the town where the girls go to college, with the film spending a week at Ringling College in March during the school’s own spring break. It was also the movie’s first week of filming overall, said Christine Meeker Lange, who managed the shoot while then working at the college.
“It was exhausting — we were probably filming at least 12 hours a day, and then the set-up and take-down was additional time,” Lange said. “But they always say that the first week of the shoot is critical to determine how the rest of it will go, and they were just so thrilled. I couldn’t be happier in how it went.”
On-campus locations included the college’s academic center for a classroom scene with a sea of computer screens illuminated in the dark, representative of the film’s day-glo visual style. Some cottages on vacant property Ringling College owned were converted into fraternity houses used for one of the film’s several party scenes.
Franco didn’t visit the Sarasota shoot, but the four leading ladies did, with fans gathering near the set in hopes of glimpsing Gomez or her then-boyfriend Justin Bieber. Lange said the spectators were very respectful, except for one who jumped a fence and another who hid under a stairwell with a camera.
“Spring Breakers” also filmed at Sarasota’s New College of Florida for exterior shots and a gleeful nighttime run. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge appears in multiple scenes as well.
The movie hit theaters nationwide a year later in March 2013 and was both a commercial and critical success. There was even talk of a sequel to be written by “Trainspotting” author Irvine Welsh without Harmony’s involvement, but that has yet to materialize.
Harmony did shoot his next film in South Florida, this year’s Matthew McConaughey stoner comedy “The Beach Bum,” and moved to Miami. Other potential projects the director has discussed — Miami gangster film “The Trap,” an adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s novel “Tampa” — are also set in Florida, so don’t be surprised if he returns to Sarasota-Manatee someday.
“Parker” (2013)
The same year “Spring Breakers” hit multiplexes, so did “Parker,” another Florida film with big-name stars partially filmed in Sarasota.
The movie was based on the criminal character of the same name in Donald E. Westlake’s novels, previously portrayed by actors like Lee Marvin in “Point Blank” and Mel Gibson in “Payback” under different monikers. Jason Statham played Parker in this 2013 adaptation, with “Ray” filmmaker Taylor Hackford directing.
“Parker” was primarily set and shot in Palm Beach, where Parker searches with the help of a local real estate agent (Jennifer Lopez) for a group of robbers who double-crossed him. But a climactic scene where the robbers pull off a heist at a jewelry auction was filmed at Ca’ d’Zan.
Sarasota County Film and Entertainment Office Director Jeanne Corcoran said the film struggled to find a suitable Palm Beach mansion for the scene, with Mar-a-Lago being too expensive. Sarasota-based crew member Pamela Alessandrelli then suggested Ca’ d’Zan. The production was interested, but wondered if they could find enough extras who could provide their own tuxedo and gown wardrobes.
“I laughed and said, ‘You absolutely can, you know this is Sarasota, right?’” Corcoran said. “‘With the opera and the ballet and the theater and the galas, I don’t think there’s any problem whatsoever with people having their own tuxedos and gowns.’”
Around 300 locals were ultimately hired, including members of Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Marine Unit for the robbers’ getaway on the water. Smoke-based pyrotechnics were also used during the shoot, which Corcoran said spent about $500,000 overall.
Statham and Lopez didn’t visit Sarasota, but other stars did, including Emmy-winning “The Shield” actor Michael Chiklis, who played the robbers’ leader Melander. Hackford’s wife, Oscar-winning British actress Helen Mirren, also accompanied him to Sarasota, Corcoran said.
Despite its pedigree, “Parker” received poor reviews and a No. 5 box-office debut. The movie was suggested as the potential start of a franchise before its release, but no follow-up film has since been announced.
Ca’ d’Zan remains one of Sarasota-Manatee’s most popular filming locations, however. Singer Jackie Evancho’s PBS special used it as a backdrop, as did the Palmetto-set TNT crime series “Claws,” which primarily shoots in Louisiana.
“Dark Night” (2017)
Indie drama “Dark Night” easily has the lowest budget and least-known stars of any movie on this list, but it nonetheless scored national attention, and could represent the future of Sarasota-Manatee filmmaking.
The film is loosely based on the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” that resulted in 12 deaths and 70 injuries. The story follows several strangers throughout their everyday lives leading up to the shooting, which is not shown onscreen.
Multiple recognizable Sarasota locations appear throughout the film, with downtown’s Regal Hollywood and its neon-lit lobby serving as the backdrop for the ending. In another scene, one character meets someone for drinks at beloved Sarasota dive bar Memories Lounge.
Yet it’s also set largely in anonymous strip malls, as well as the actual houses of local cast members, the majority of whom weren’t professional actors. Sutton told the Herald-Tribune in a previous interview that he was drawn to Sarasota because of its “universal” suburban landscape.
“The landscape of the film was always supposed to feel like Florida, but it could be Arizona or Connecticut,” Sutton said.
The film’s crew was a similar blend of professional and aspiring filmmakers, including several from Ringling College, where the movie also shot. Students worked in key roles including assistant camera and the art department, alongside Sutton and Independent Spirit Awards-nominated cinematographer Helene Louvart.
“Dark Night” premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Unsurprisingly, given its sensitive subject matter and experimental nature, reviews were divided. But the positive ones were often highly so, such as Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt, who called it “a haunting, thought-provoking piece of work.”
And the setup of making movies with a blend of professionals and Ringling College students has continued in Sarasota.
Kevin Smith’s horror anthology film “Killroy was Here” wrapped filming last year at Sarasota locations like Booker Middle School and Fruitville Grove and is currently in post-production. So is Beau Bridges’ “Acting: The First Six Lessons,” which used Ringling College students on its crew as well.
These indie films may not boast the glitz and glamour of “The Greatest Show on Earth,” but they could be what continues Sarasota-Manatee’s long history of filmmaking into the new decade.
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