Actors and film crews next week will start shooting a long-delayed biopic about boxing legend and Hartford native Willie Pep’s 1965 comeback.
Three years in the making — partly because of pandemic-related delays — actors including James Madio (“Band of Brothers”, “Basketball Diaries”), who will play Pep, will arrive in Hartford for an 18-day shoot in locations around the city beginning Monday.
“When we first came to Hartford, we were so excited narratively to be able to film in the place where Willie Pep lived,” director Robert Kolodny said. “It allows the movie to have a realism that we wouldn’t get if we were shooting in New York or Los Angeles.”
Filmmakers have shot several movies in Connecticut’s Capital City in recent months, but generally have used Hartford to double as another location. For example, “Call Jane,” which will star Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, shot scenes in Hartford over the summer, but the film takes place in 1960s-era Chicago.
“You could look at New York, Los Angeles, Chicago; there are films that you think of,” Kolodny said. “There isn’t a film that you think of when you think of Hartford, Connecticut, and we would really like this to be that film.”
Writer/producer Steve Loff said he’d scouted locations including New York and Cleveland, before ultimately landing on Hartford. Beyond artistic benefits to shooting in the city where the story actually happened, shooting in Hartford has financial and logistical benefits, Loff said.
Connecticut’s digital media and motion picture tax credit rebates 30% of a production’s entire budget, which is more generous than other states, including New York, Loff said. Loff said he and partners will use the rebate on the $1.7 million budget to partially finance the film.
Also, while cities like New York and LA have a lot of experience and infrastructure hosting film crews, officials in Hartford are more accessible and accommodating, Loff said.
In addition to people filming the Pep movie, a crew from Connecticut Public Television will be shooting a documentary about the making of the film. That’s part of a deal in which CT Public is allowing the filmmakers to use the first floor of its Asylum Avenue offices as a homebase for production while in Hartford.
Loff said he came upon the Pep story through Madio, who years ago said he wanted to someday play the part. In researching Pep’s career, he opted not to tell the story of his initial rise in the 1940s, but his comeback in 1965. And the idea that the most winning boxer of all time lacks name recognition fascinated Loff.
“He’s one of the great fighters of all time, he’s got the most wins in the history of boxing, and no one had ever heard of this man, and I wondered how this could be,” Loff said. “Why he’s been disregarded really drove me… and I hope this story changes that.”
Loff and Kolodny also pointed out that Pep’s ’65 comeback dovetails with the city of Hartford’s efforts at rebounding into a more prosperous city through economic development, construction and other efforts.
“It’s the story of someone quite literally making a comeback,” Kolodny said. “It’s a very hopeful story — full of spirit — and I think in many ways that represents the direction that the city of Hartford is going.”