Crew members were in Aurora Shores last weekend filming the new action movie Drifter, with Kate Beckinsale and Dermot Mulroney starring in the project directed by Randall Emmett. The shoot also reached nearby Solon and Orange Village, turning a quiet stretch of northeast Ohio into a working set.
For Laura DiSanto, who rented out her home for the production with Tim Tomkovicz, the sight was impossible to miss. She said it was fascinating to watch because of how much equipment was there and how smoothly the crew worked together. DiSanto also said the experience made her think differently about how movies come together once the trucks, lights and people start filling a neighborhood.
The attention around Drifter is not just about the cast. An application from the Ohio Department of Development says the movie is planning 193 days of production in Ohio, including 26 shoot days, on a budget of $17 million. It also puts the expected tax credit at $5.1 million, which works out to just over 30 percent of the budget. That kind of money helps explain why a film with recognized names is showing up in local neighborhoods rather than staying on a closed set elsewhere.
Emmett has said the story follows a cop and a drifter who is arrested in a smaller town, ends up in jail and becomes an informant and FBI witness. Bill Sage said the production is moving fast because it is an action film. Michelle Tyszka said residents first got letters in the mail about the filming before realizing Beckinsale and Mulroney were involved, and she described scenes that included shooting, people falling off boats and a dead man floating in the water.
That kind of production is also why Emmett has been praising Ohio so loudly. He has called it the best place to shoot because of the law, the film-friendly community and the local infrastructure and available crews, saying he brought in only five or six crew members out of 115 people. At the same time, the state’s Motion Picture Tax Credit Program has faced scrutiny in recent years, including a 2023 fight over its cap and a 2025 veto by Mike DeWine of a budget provision that would have ended the credit in 2027.
For Aurora and the surrounding towns, Drifter is already more than a title on a call sheet. The film is in motion, the locations have been identified, and the people who opened their homes saw the machinery up close. What remains unanswered is the most practical detail for anyone following along: when the movie will be released.
