Crew filming movie stops in Hobbs

It wasn’t exactly a movie shoot but a film crew stayed overnight in trailers at the parking lot of the Walmart shopping center before they headed out of Hobbs on Friday.

Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges, and co-stars Chris Pine and Ben Foster, had already wrapped up their roles during the week for the drama “Comancheria,” but the film crew had to finish “road shots” and other scenery slated for Artesia and Maljamar. Most of the film was shot near Portales and Clovis.

None of the actors were around the area where the technicians roamed, or shopped. The crew were there long enough to eat a little breakfast before making their next move. By 10 a.m. they had packed up and left the parking lot.

Bridges, who garnered an Academy Award for his lead performance in the 2009 character drama “Crazy Heart,” which was filmed in New Mexico — and received a Best Actor nomination for his role in the 2010 “True Grit” remake — stars in the contemporary heist film about a divorced father and his ex-convict brother who rob a bank to keep their family farm.

The crime puts them in the cross hairs of a West

Texas ranger, played by Bridges, determined to bring them in. The brothers are played by Pine (best known for his role as Captain Kirk in the new “Star Trek” series reboot) and Ben Foster, who appeared in the 2013 war movie “Lone Survivor.”

“Comancheria” is directed by David Mackenzie and screen written by Taylor Sheridan. The production of the film had about 135 crew members from New Mexico and about 850 extras, or “background talent,” New Mexico Office Director Nick Maniatis said.

Silvio Panta can be reached at (575) 391-5446 or at courts@ hobbsnews.com