It’s a fun game for TV viewers to see what shows are clearly not filmed in the city they’re supposed to be set in. Toronto has filled in for scores of U.S. cities thanks to the lower costs of filming in Canada. While Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago are used for location shooting, some series find it easier to film overseas.
Blue Bloods did film on location in New York City to fit its vibe. However, talking to Andy Cohen Live, Donnie Wahlberg revealed that the plan wasn't to film Boston Blue. Wahlberg, a born and bred proud Bostonian, was eager to shoot in his hometown, only for CBS to have a different idea.
"When I got offered the job, I'm like, 'This is a dream come true,' because I thought I'll do a spinoff in L.A. or Vegas or Texas, somewhere hot. And they were like, 'How about Boston?' I was like, 'Oh. They hooked me,' and I was like, 'Let's do it in Boston,' and they said, 'But we can't afford to shoot it in Boston. We're gonna shoot it in Toronto.'"
Wahlberg wasn’t happy with that. Not only would filming in his hometown be great for him and his character of Danny Reagan, but he thought it was needed to capture the flavor of the city and make it resonate with audiences. He even went so far as to offer a massive salary cut to help the budget.
"I said, 'Listen, I'll give back 50% of my paycheck if we can go to Boston'... and they said, 'You can give back 100% and so can the rest of the cast. We cannot film this show in Boston, but we'll do a couple.' It's so expensive."
That still wasn’t enough, but as it turns out, there’s another good reason filming in Boston wouldn’t work.
Wahlberg soon discovered that filming in Toronto offered advantages over Boston in more than just the cost and mood. Rather, it’s because even more so than New York City, Boston is a town that’s far too busy to properly film a regular cop show.
"We couldn't film it in Boston full-time because it's nonstop. It's literally the duck boats are going by and the duck boat tour guides have on these headsets with speakers and it's literally in the background of a scene. You hear, 'Oh my God, there's Donnie Wahlberg right over there on the corner. I grew up near Donnie. Everyone get your cameras out,' and then I gotta run over to the duck boat and pose for pictures with everyone and my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, my nieces, my nephews. Everybody's there, and we wouldn't get any work done. Literally. The dailies is just, you're literally hearing cars honking as I'm doing my dialogue. 'Donnie, how's your father?' 'He's in heaven.'"
The series does do a couple of scenes here and there for famous Boston landmarks. It’s likely a future episode will revolve around Fenway Park and how Yankees fan Danny attends a Red Sox game. However, the series does a good job replicating Boston for the city scenes, most of which take place at random buildings or alleys.
Maybe if the show becomes more successful in its second season, they may be able to film in Boston more. As of now, whenever fans check out Boston Blue, just know how much of it is actually Canadian.
Boston Blue airs Fridays at 10/9c on CBS.
Add us as a preferred source on Google