DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997                TAG: 9704250600

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   87 lines

HAMPTON ROADS GOES HOLLYWOOD: MAJOR MOVIE PRODUCTION ARRIVES

Jamie Lee Curtis walks amongst us - somewhere.

The long-awaited $60 million movie production ``Virus'' has arrived - arguably the most expensive movie yet filmed in Virginia.

The cameras begin turning this week on the waterfront in Newport News, as movie veterans Curtis, Donald Sutherland and newcomer William Baldwin do battle against alien hordes aboard a mothballed Navy vessel rigged to play the role of a Russian spy ship.

Already, star sightings have been reported. Sutherland was spotted Wednesday having dinner in a downtown Norfolk restaurant. A caller says she spotted Curtis in a Hampton store.

On screen, Sutherland was recently seen in ``Disclosure'' and ``Outbreak,'' while Curtis hit it big in ``True Lies'' with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Baldwin is best known for ``Backdraft'' and ``Sliver.''

Most celeb-watchers will have to be content with getting an eyeful of the movie's ocean-going star. The former missile range instrumentation ship Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg has attracted its share of attention, moving about among area waterfronts since the film's production was announced in January. Motorists can now spot it on the left as they emerge from the Monitor-Merrimac tunnel from Norfolk to Newport News - flying a Russian flag.

Filming is set to proceed at the Newport News dock, and in the Chesapeake Bay through mid-June.

``We're here to get the film made and that's the priority,'' said Pat Story, film company spokeswoman.

Story said a press conference will be staged at some later date, but she says little other public access is likely. Since much of the film's action takes place onboard the ship, they will probably not need extras.

Originally scheduled to begin local shooting here in early April, the film was apparently delayed in Wilmington, N.C., where the cast and crew have been shooting since Jan. 30 at Screen Gems' studio.

Rumors from the Wilmington studio were that the original robotic creatures, alien beings who seek to destroy the entire human race, no less, were not horrific enough. The official company line, though, is that everything is on schedule.

The plot revolves around an alien computer that infects Russia's Mir space station and then transmits itself down to a satellite tracking ship in the North Sea. Human beings are the virus of the title. The machines feel that the virus (that's us, folks) need to be totally annihilated.

Our heroes are on a tugboat in the North Sea, threatened by a typhoon. They are saved by a Russian spy vehicle, but it's not a rescue that provides lasting relief: the crew has been ravaged by aliens.

The film is very tentatively set to reach theaters in the fall.

The Newport News City Council last week granted the temporary lease and use of land and buildings in the downtown waterfront area for the filming. The city estimates that the filming would bring $8 million into the local economy.

The film has already sparked a resurgence of activity in Wilmington at the studio once operated by Carolco, then De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and now Screen Gems. The studio, managed by Frank Capra Jr., son of the legendary ``It's a Wonderful Life'' director, needed a big-budget film to put it back on the map. The last major film to be shot there was 1994's ``Radioland Murders.''

Six of the eight sound stages in Wilmington were used during the ``Virus'' production, including a 500-gallon water tank used to simulate the flooding of the ship's engine room during the typhoon segment.

``Virus'' is first major film to be shot in Hampton Roads since ``Navy SEALS'' in 1990.

Virginia Film Office reports a 14 percent increase in film production revenues during the past year, raising the figure to $32 million. The activity includes shooting of parts of ``The People vs. Larry Flynt'' in Fairfax; ``Kilronan,'' with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Lange in central Virginia and ``A Matter of Honor,'' formerly titled ``G.I. Jane,'' with Demi Moore in Richmond. Doug Forrest, vice president of Colonna's Shipyard in Norfolk, said the production company spent over $1 million to revamp the Vandenburg to make it look like a Russian research vehicle in the North Sea. ``We also prepared two tugboats for the filming - one of which is rigged to sink over and over again,'' he said. ``The ships have been delivered to the company and, in effect, they own them now.''

Built in 1994 as a troop transport, the Vandenberg was converted in 1965 for tracking and testing nuclear missiles. It was decommissioned in 1983 and put in the National Defense Reserve Fleet on the James River. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

THE FILM: The $60 million movie production ``Virus'' has arrived in

the area, bringing along celebrities Donald Sutherland, left, and

Jamie Lee Curtis. Filming will proceed at the Newport News dock, and

in the Chesapeake Bay through mid-June.

STAR SIGHTINGS: Sutherland was spotted in a downtown Norfolk

restaurant; Curtis was seen in a Hampton store.

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