Super summer

Superman is coming to Chicago this summer, a huge boost for the city's hopes to be a moviemaking superpower.

Filming of Warner Bros. Pictures' next Superman movie will take place in the Chicago area over two or three months starting in August, industry sources tell Crain's, with production centered in far west suburban Plano.

In the works for years, “Superman: Man of Steel”

is Warner Bros.' high-stakes, big-budget bid to revive the comic-book hero's movie franchise after “Superman Returns” belly-flopped with critics and audiences in 2006.

With an estimated budget of $175 million, the film promises the Chicago area an economic boost like it got from last summer's filming of “Transformers 3” and the Batman movies shot here in recent years. It also keeps Chicago on the A list of production locales at a time when studio superhero Oprah Winfrey is flying away.

“It would be a tremendous windfall for us,” says Richard Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office. He can't confirm Warner Bros.' plans but says such a film “showcases a city well to audiences and draws the attention of other producers.”

Less conspicuous, but no less important, is a growing number of television pilots shooting in Chicago. One of the five shot last year turned into a series, “The Chicago Code,” which is up for renewal next season. Another cop drama pilot, “Cooper and Stone,” and a “Mad Men”-style "60s-era show set in Chicago called “The Playboy Club” are in production here.

“Boss,” an eight-episode cable drama starring Kelsey Grammer of “Frasier” as an off-kilter mayor of Chicago, will soon start production, possibly at Cinespace Chicago, a huge studio being built in several Southwest Side buildings formerly occupied by steel distributor Ryerson Inc.

While the plot and other details of “Superman: Man of Steel” have been kept super-secret, the first in a refreshed series would logically focus on Superman's early years in the Kansas town of Smallville, which would explain semi-rural Plano as the setting for much of the filming.

Academy Award winner Kevin Costner has signed on to play Superman's foster father, Jonathan Kent, and Diane Lane will play Martha, his mother. Cast to play Superman/Clark Kent is relatively unknown British actor Henry Cavill, 27, who played Charles Brandon in the HBO series “The Tudors.”

Major motion pictures can have a huge impact on the local film industry and its workforce, which ranges from truckers and set artists to hairdressers and caterers. The shooting of “Transformers 3” turned downtown Chicago into a street-blocked, noisy mess last summer but generated a $20-million impact on the local economy and created 1,200 jobs, according to city estimates.

The shooting of a TV series can have an impact that goes on for years, which is why the industry is concerned about the five-year sunset provision for the film tax credit, passed by the Illinois House and pending in the state Senate.

“If a series gets picked up, the studio would definitely want to know if the incentive is in place,” says James McAllister, assistant production manager for “The Playboy Club” pilot episode. “Having the tax credit in place makes it attractive.”