Matthew McConaughey Movie Filming In Lakewood

LAKEWOOD, OH - Lakewood is getting some star power this week as Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey will be in the suburb filming an unnamed movie, the city says. The film will be shot in the unused portions of the former Lakewood Hospital.

The city says the movie is still unnamed on its website. However, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has the title of the project as "White Boy Ricky". Whether or not that is the final name of the picture is yet to be seen.

Set in the 1980s, the movie tells the true story of Richard Wershe Jr., a 14-year-old, who goes undercover as an informant for local and federal law enforcement. We'll spoil the movie with its real-life ending lower in the story and give fair warning before doing so.

Filming will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, but crews will begin to prepare the set on Monday. Bryce Sylvester, the city's economic planner, said on the Lakewood website that 120 crew members and several actors will be downtown for the filming.

“This certainly adds to our profile,” said Sylvester in a statement online. “It’s encouraging to us that we have an environment that film scouts find attractive. In Lakewood, we continue to build off of our successes. This film is just another example of that.”

The crew's trucks will be located in Madison Park. Crews and actors will then be shuttled from Madison Park to the former Lakewood Hospital site. Parking meters along Marlowe will be utilized for production trailers, the city says.

Kevin Foster, the assistant location manager for the film, said they chose Lakewood because active hospitals are extremely difficult to film in and appropriate looking vacant hospitals are difficult to come by.

Besides McConaughey, Bruce Dern and Jennifer Jason Leigh are slated to star in the film.

Oh, and spoiler alert. After serving as an undercover agent for law enforcement, Wershe Jr. reportedly turned to a life of crime. Eventually, he was convicted of drug trafficking and was sentenced to life in prison. So there may not be a happy ending for this film.

Photos from Rick Uldricks, Patch