Hollywood star Tom Selleck is about to lead an United States military invasion into Auckland.
Selleck is acting in a TV-movie that will be filmed in various Auckland locations between February 9 and March 4.
The star of Magnum PI in the 1980s, is playing US wartime general and post-warPresident Dwight D. Eisenhower in Ike: Thunder in June, an American A&E Network's two-hour TV-movie about the D-Day invasion.
The shooting locations will include Ardmore Aerodrome, Auckland Girls' Grammar and Auckland Boys' Grammar, St Paul's Anglican Church in Symonds St, Rothesay Bay on the North Shore, Mt Roskill and Epsom.
No airborne shots will be taken at Ardmore, but one of the old warbirds will be used as a backdrop, and some Auckland-based members of the Historical Re-enactment Society (NZ) are being lined as film extras. It is being produced by Film Factory NZ. The executive producer is Emmy Award-winner Delia Fine and Robert Harmon (The Crossing) is director.
Auckland is fast gaining worldwide fame as a filming location. The $300 million movie The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is being filmed in Waitakere. Whale Rider, The Piano and popular TV series' Hercules and Xena were also shot in the area.
Ike: Thunder in June -- which will air in the US in time for the 60th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 -- depicts the tense 90 days leading up to the Allied invasion of Europe and an American view of Eisenhower's role.
Selleck, who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Magnum PI, admits he wouldn't have been his own first choice for the part. And what will Selleck do to recreate Ike's look? Other than shaving his moustache, not much.
"Great men are great not because of what they look like, they're great because of who they are," he told USA Today.
