DiCaprio, Lawrence movie may be filming at DCU Center

WORCESTER — Filming of the movie "Don't Look Up," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is expected to take place at the DCU Center arena this week.

In addition to DiCaprio, who won an Oscar for “The Revenant,“ the Netflix comedy also stars Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep. 

Filming on the project recently started in Boston and is expected to extend to other locations, including Worcester.

DiCaprio and Lawrence play star-crossed astronomers that discover a devastating meteor is on a collision course with Earth. It is unclear if the stars are part of the scenes to be filmed at the DCU Center.

Lawrence was one of the stars of “American Hustle,” part of which was filmed in Worcester in 2013.

Other recent filming in Worcester includes the movie “Honest Thief,” starring Liam Neeson, which filmed scenes in Worcester in November 2018. The HBO Max series “Julia,” about TV chef Julia Child, was filmed in the Denholm Building downtown.

Another section of the DCU Center, the convention hall, is being used for a COVID-19 field hospital.

“Don’t Look Up” is not the first time Worcester was the proposed filming site for a DiCaprio picture.

In the fall of 2007, Paramount Pictures and Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese hoped to shoot the film adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel "Shutter Island" at the decaying former Worcester State Hospital.

Scorsese's longtime art director, Dante Ferretti, also an Academy Award winner, came to Worcester to scout the location.

But after years of sitting vacant, much of the former complex was slated for the wrecking ball to make way for a new 300-bed, $278 million state psychiatric hospital. State officials nixed the film proposal in December 2007 because construction was scheduled to begin there in February or March 2008, around the time the studio wanted to film.

However, in March 2008, shooting of “Shutter Island” was underway at the former Medfield State Hospital while the only indication of a major demolition on the grounds of the former Worcester State Hospital was an excavator digging a small hole away from the Clock Tower.

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