Downtown St. Charles to shine in new Netflix movie

Downtown St. Charles certainly should be well represented in the Netflix noir thriller “The Killer.”

Award-winning director David Fincher, known for such films as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Gone Girl” and “Fight Club,” recently was in downtown St. Charles filming the movie. The movie stars Michael Fassbender, known for playing the character Magneto in the X-Men movies, and Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton. Both were in downtown St. Charles for the filming.

“It certainly will put Hotel Baker on a new level,” St. Charles Mayor Lora Vitek said. “But I do know, based on the first cut, I believe that our Municipal Building is in it, obviously a lot of Main Street is, the Arcada Theatre is and so is Riverside Pizza. There are a lot of businesses that have been touched by the movie. When that movie is released, it’s a great thing for our city.”

Much of the filming took place at the historic Hotel Baker, which was built in 1928 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Vitek had the opportunity to meet Fassbender and Swinton. She said both of them, along with the movie’s executive producer, “were extremely grateful and complimentary of St. Charles.”

Vitek said the movie’s executive producer was impressed with the city’s downtown after previously visiting St. Charles.

“He had made a comment that he had come here and he knew this was a place he would want to come film a movie,” she said. “I think that’s pretty cool. Obviously, we’ve got a very unique location with the river and at night the lights shine on the Hotel Baker. It’s just a very unique, cool setting for a movie.”

Vitek didn’t get to see any scenes being filmed in the downtown.

“We knew there was filming going on by the river and I could see the lights, but I didn’t get to see any of it actually being filmed,” Vitek said.

Fassbender plays a contract killer in the movie, which is based on a French graphic novel. Filming on the movie recently wrapped up.

Paris, New Orleans and the Dominican Republic also are serving as backdrops for the movie. which is expected to be released later this year or early next year.