Film crews will return to St. Louis this summer, with 3 productions starting up in June

A film production is setting up shop on The Hill beginning June 8, the first of three movies to be filmed in St. Louis in the next two months.

Love on the Hill will be the smallest of the three productions, with a budget that producer Kit Sundararaman describes as somewhere between “low budget” and “ultra low budget” on the Screen Actors’ Guild scale, putting its budget somewhere below $2 million. Sundararaman is co-producing with filmmaker and marketer Lori Dowd and Jason Henderson, a principal at Edward Jones (and, Sundararaman says, sometime actor). Sundararaman says the film will be a romantic comedy that draws on the charms of the Italian-American neighborhood as it tells the story of a social media influencer and a minor league baseball player. There will be scenes set at Cunetto’s, in and around local homes on The Hill (Sundararaman says they’re scouting locations now), and at the Gateway Grizzlies’ stadium just across the river in Sauget, Illinois.

“The community has been so all in on helping us, and have just really embraced the idea of this,” she says. “It has been a dream to work with them so far.” 

Sundararaman anticipates being able to announce a few of the well-known names participating in the coming weeks. Shooting is expected to take three to four weeks.

That means it’s likely to overlap with the two “very large” productions coming here, which film commissioner Kelley Hiatt says she is not at liberty to share details about—but which portend a busy summer. Hiatt says the two productions’ budgets will total $17 million and that they’ll film here from mid-June through August.

A former location scout in Los Angeles who moved to St. Louis in 2023, Hiatt says the two major productions are a sign of the growing momentum around the region. One year ago, Chasing Summer brought Megan Mullally and Lola Tung here before debuting at Sundance. Jacob Beats Up Nate, which brought Lamorne Morris and Justin Long here to film in October, is now in post-production. 

“The word’s out that we’ve got a really great tax incentive and that we’re a great place to film,” says Hiatt.

Fueling Hollywood’s interest is the tax credits that Missouri brought back in 2023 after a long hiatus. It was pushed in part by the filmmakers behind Soul on Fire, which premiered at a star-studded event at Powell Hall last year and ended up becoming a big hit, earning an estimated $7.4 million to date. The tax credits provide up to $8 million each for film and episodic TV. All three productions getting underway this summer are tapping into them, Hiatt says.

The credits have proven so popular that they’re already nearly gone, with just $143,000 left for episodic TV and $1.2 million for film, even as the year isn’t half over. That’s one reason the St. Louis Film Office was among those lobbying for the legislature to combine the two pools into one: Right now, even if no more movies want to use the credits, people filming TV shows are out of luck, a problem that could be solved by one common $16 million pool. Unfortunately, though, that effort failed to get across the finish line in the legislative session that just wrapped (Hiatt says backers plan to try again next year). 

The credits aren’t the only thing St. Louis has going for it, Hiatt stresses. She says the region’s unique ability to stand in for many varied locations within a relatively small footprint is a real asset, something she’s working hard to showcase to filmmakers. In Chasing Summer, our locations were made to look like suburban Texas. Both big-budget productions filming here also plan to use St. Louis as a stand-in for other locations, though Hiatt promises a scene or two that are explicitly set here.

“The age-old philosophy is that you never want to move a truck, because that just costs money,” she says. “That they can have a home base and get a lot of the filming done in one particular location is very attractive.” 

Love on the Hill is unusual in that it’s not just being filmed here, it’s also set here. Sundararaman hopes the film will help spur not just the economic activity that takes place when a film crew sets up shop, but also help sell moviegoers on St. Louis’ charms. 

Says Sundararaman, “Certainly the economic value of bringing crews in and bringing people in and spending money is one thing, but the PR element of highlighting that St. Louis is a great place to visit and a great community is equally, if not more, important to this community long term.” 

If you’re interested in being an extra in the film, Sundararaman says they’re looking for people to pack the stands at the Gateway Grizzlies on June 9 for its “Be in a Movie Night at the Ballpark.” Tickets and more information are available at gatewaygrizzlies.com.