Filming of 'Avengers' in Cleveland approaches the end

View full sizeLynn Ischay, The Plain DealerThe past few weeks in downtown Cleveland have seen explosions, fires, and the streets of the city transformed into New York and Germany.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Avengers came to Cleveland, saved us from a Norse god and supervillains, and now it's time to move on.

That's what superheroes do.

Filming of "The Avengers" wraps up in the next few days. The actors and an accompanying fleet of tractor-trailers, laden with millions of dollars worth of cameras, computers, equipment, costumes and other bits of Hollywood magic, will be gone from Cleveland streets, buildings and parking lots.

When the movie is released on May 4 and Captain America battles Loki, that Norse villain, to save hundreds of people, we will know that the fight took place in Public Square on a cool summer night. Many of us will remember watching as comic books came to life.

The movie's reception in Cleveland 'made a favorable impression on the filmmakers. First there were the long lines of people who signed up to become extras in the film. Then, hundreds of people lined areas outside the sets to watch the shooting.

"It was great to see them come out every day," said Jeremy Latcham, co-producer of the movie for Marvel Studios. "They took tons of pictures and put them up on the Internet, which is just great.

"Cleveland has been amazing. We wanted a real street feeling to the scenes, and we got that," he said.

The plot of the movie, co-written and directed by Joss Whedon, remains a mystery. It involves the Marvel Comics superhero team battling Thor's half-brother, Loki, who has stolen the Cosmic Cube, which can warp reality itself. There have been rampant rumors that the Skrulls, a shape-shifting alien race, play into the story, which would mirror a recent storyline in the comic.

In many scenes, the Avengers fought people wearing devices that allow special-effects technicians to overlay a computer-generated image on their bodies -- perhaps a green, scaly alien image.

For a few weeks, East Ninth Street was turned into a war zone where Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Captain America (Christopher Evans) battled Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and other bad guys amid pickup-truck-size hunks of rubble.

The battles continued on Public Square, which was turned into a Stuttgart, Germany, beer garden and opera house. Captain America and Iron Man fought Loki in front of a large number of extras dressed in formal wear on Thursday and Friday night. The "Iron Man" in those scenes was a stunt double in full costume augmented with computer-generated software.

On Friday and Saturday night, Scarlett Johansson filmed scenes at an old warehouse on Ashland Road near Longfellow Avenue, off Cedar Road near the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks. The warehouse was the site of top secret filming and doubled as a Russian facility. Trailers for the stars and temporary food preparation and wardrobe stations were set up in a base camp there.

Other filming sites included the old DHL facility in Wilmington, Ohio, and NASA's Plum Brook facility in Sandusky, where Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and Clark Gregg (SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson) were seen. That location, and the availability of state tax credits, were crucial factors in bringing the film to Ohio from Michigan.

Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/The Hulk) and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) did not come to Cleveland.

The old Chevrolet plant in Parma was used to film fireball explosions that will be spliced into other scenes. The Lakeside Courthouse building will be the stage of a scene to be shot Monday night.

Latcham said some members of the cast will travel to New York for two days to wrap up the filming.

"After that Joss takes it all back to L.A. and creates the movie," he said.

Ivan Schwarz, executive director of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission, who helped persuade Marvel to bring the big-budget movie to the city, said the cast and crew loved their time here.

"I have not heard anyone say a bad word about the city," he said. "They had an amazing time and loved the restaurants, the bars, the clubs, the attractions and everything Cleveland had to offer."

He said the stars, as well as the hundreds of crew members, did not just stay downtown. They ventured into the suburbs during their spare time.

"This was the first time anyone in the world got to see the Avengers in costume," Schwarz said. "The previous filming in New Mexico was all done in a closed sound stage. Here, they were on the streets in full costume."

Dozens of stories, photos and videos about the Cleveland filming were found in newspapers and magazines, on television shows and on the Internet.

"Hats off to the residents who tolerated the inconvenience of closed streets and changed bus schedules with little complaint," Schwarz said. "We all did everything we could to encourage them and other moviemakers to come to our city."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: msangiacomo@plaind.com, 216-999-4890

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Read the latest about the filming of the movie here and watch videos from the set here. You can also follow Plain Dealer reporter Michael Sangiacomo on Twitter at @mikesang