Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts to film in Oklahoma

The Weinstein Company, the studio producing the movie based on Tulsa native Tracy Letts Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is not prepared to make the announcement, but the Oklahoma Film Commission, which has helped filmmakers scout the area for locations, has a jobs listing on its website for crew members for the picture, and says the film is scheduled to begin shooting in the area on Sept. 24.

While a film commission spokesperson declined to comment on the filming, the wish of many Oklahomans is apparently confirmed: August: Osage County will literally film in Osage County, as well as other areas, this fall.

It starts shooting in late summer in a house they found in Pawhuska, Okla., that is absolutely perfect, Letts enthused last week in a Chicago Sun-Times story in which he was discussing Killer Joe, his latest play-turned-into-movie project which is in theaters (it arrives in Tulsa in September).

For the record, the Chicago Tribune also noted the September start date for filming in Oklahoma. Following Letts conducting a question-and-answer session on Killer Joe, he offered this nugget to Tribune film writer Michael Phillips: His three-hour-plus play will probably be a movie thats closer to two hours in length.

Its been a fight, frankly, with the producers, including Harvey Weinstein, about the length of the film, Letts told the Tribune. Im going to lose all these fights.

Then there was this tidbit from a story in Wednesdays USA Today, in which Streep and Tommy Lee Jones were interviewed for their new movie Hope Springs. Streep tells the journalist about the filming in Bartlesville, and Jones borrows the Oscar-winners iPad to look up geographical data for the area.

Youre approaching Cherokee Country and Tenkiller Lake, Jones tells Streep, according to the USA Today story, of her northeastern Oklahoma filming location.

An important factor in the decision to shoot in Oklahoma is li! kely due to the production being prequalified for a state rebate after its application for one was received Jan. 3.

The rebate is for as much as 37 percent of a films in-state expenditures to those companies that qualify. The fund is capped at $5 million per year, and Jill Simpson, director of the Oklahoma Film & Music Office, previously said that August: Osage County was the only film approved by the state agency this year.

Streep and Roberts, who have never acted together before, will play mother and daughter in the film adaptation of August: Osage County. They were the first two performers cast to play members of the deeply dysfunctional Pawhuska family depicted in Letts play.

Letts was born in Tulsa, and his mother, author Billie Letts, still lives here.

August: Osage County won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award as best play in 2008. The play took Broadway by storm and was almost immediately praised as one of the greatest American plays ever written.

Read more of this story and find out who else is starring in the film in Friday's Tulsa World and online at tulsaworld.com/movies.