Principal filming for the made-in-Boston spy flick "Wichita," starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Maggie Grace and Marc Blucas, kicked off on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at the Worcester Regional Airport.The film's code name indicated by the yellow production signs plastered all over Worcester? Zephyr.
In preparation for the shoot, set designers transformed the locale to act as stand-in for the Wichita Airport. The film's prop team received 40 copies of a Kansas paper, The Wichita Eagle, and 25 guides from the Wichita Convention & Visitors Bureau. Also, crews built a gift shop, a transportation security inspection area and a bar. The set will be torn down after the four-day shoot.
According to one tipster, security is extremely tight on set. "There's a lot of activity at the base camp and the airport location," says a Loaded Gun Boston reader in Worcester. "The airport police have the entrance to the airport closed and there are 'no parking' signs are up all along the road, so no one will park there."
The source continues, "I'm also listening to the airport police on the radio and they're turning around all spectators from the area."
The soon-to-be-renamed "Wichita" follows Cruise as a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of single woman played by Diaz.
On Monday, Sept. 21, crews are filming all day in a desolate area of Somerville located on Windsor Street between South and Water seen here.
Meanwhile, production is hashing out an elaborate crash scene where a commercial 727 airliner skids into a Cumberland Farms cornfield near Curve Street in Bridgewater. Scheduled to shoot Thursday, Sept. 24 and Friday, Sept. 25, the scene depicts the aftermath of plane crash in a fictional Indiana locale.
