Franklin Field gets role in new movie

Franklin Field has become famous in a number of ways over the years, ranging from playing host to the Army-Navy football game to the Penn Relays to the Philadelphia Eagles, who called 33rd Street their home before moving to Veterans Stadium in South Philadelphia for the 1971 season.

Next week, the Eagles will return to Franklin Field -- well, sort of. A crew from Walt Disney Pictures will descend upon University City to shoot the film Invincible, the story of how 30-year-old Vince Papale joined the Eagles through an open tryout in 1976.

To accommodate the filming, as well as camps that take place at Franklin Field throughout the summer, another one of the stadium's great traditions has been affected. The stadium's running track, which has traditionally been as open to the public as College Green, will be closed off from July 18 to August 22.

"The activities that are going to be taking place, there's going to be about 15-20 days of prep work in the stadium and about 20 days of filming," Penn Athletics Director of Facilities and Operations Dave Bryan said. "Some of those days don't interfere with the general recreational activities that take place, others will, so unfortunately we will have to close the facility."

He added that the decision was not made lightly.

"Believe me, if there's times we can open the track and leave it open we will," he said."

Although Franklin Field will serve as the filming site, it will not actually be seen in the movie. The film's production crews will overlay computer-generated images of Veterans Stadium onto the footage to make the movie more accurate, as the Vet was the Eagles' home when Papale's story took place.

While Bryan said that replacing Franklin Field with the Vet doesn't help Penn "from an exposure standpoint," he said that Penn still stands to benefit from having its name associated with the production end of a big-time sports movie.

"It certainly doesn't hurt -- we try to host these things as often as we can -- other than the inconvenience for those who may be accustomed to using the stadium," he said.

Although representatives of Walt Disney Pictures could not be reached for comment, Greater Philadelphia Film Office Executive Director Sharon Pinkenson said that she utilized the Eagles' history at Franklin Field as a selling point to get the movie produced here instead of in New York.

"That was my marketing pitch, but they didn't buy it at first because Franklin Field looks nothing like Veterans Stadium," she said.

The producers were convinced at first that Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., would be a better substitute, but quickly realized that it would be no better than shooting at Franklin Field.

"When they got inside there and they saw that Giants Stadium was red and blue, they were like, wait a second, maybe it's not such a good idea," Pinkenson said. "I think that as they continued to get into the issues of shooting in both places, Philadelphia got the nod after a while."

There were also financial considerations involved in deciding between the two longtime rival cities. While New York and Philadelphia both offered the right backdrops for shooting neighborhood scenes, Pinkenson said that "the financial incentives that Pennsylvania provides for the film industry were probably the overriding factor that made them not shoot in New York."

And so, for once, Philadelphia has triumphed over its northern neighbor in something sports-related.

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