Filming of Jon Hamm's 'Confess, Fletch' a 'learning experience' for Cohasset

COHASSET – A few months months ago, Gerald Butler received a phone call with a familiar 323 area code.

Hollywood had come calling again.

Butler, the owner of The Oaks Estate on Margin Street since 2018, said he knew the calls might come when he bought his childhood dream home.

“Just before I bought the house, they had filmed another movie here,” Butler said.

That movie, a small-budget film called “Thoroughbreds” featuring Anna Taylor-Joy, of "The Queen’s Gambit," was the most recent to film in Cohasset. But this time, The Oaks would host a full-fledged blockbuster hopeful.

Miramax Studios picked Cohasset to shoot several scenes for “Confess, Fletch," a reboot of the “Fletch” series of the 1980s. The film stars Jon Hamm ("Mad Men") in the title role.

While Cohasset isn't a stranger to movie shoots – "Witches of Eastwick" continues to cast a charming spell over the town – the size of the most recent production came as a surprise to some residents.

Town Manager Chris Senior said that for members of the select board, who spent the better part of the last two months talking to the "Confess, Fletch" production team, the impact of filming on the town was unexpected.

“When you see where they’re filming on The Oaks, and against the backside of the property on the water, you think it’s a huge piece of land and there won’t be much impact,” Senior said. “But there has been impact.”

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The impact has taken different forms, with perhaps the most invasive being road closures and blockages on Margin Street.

Senior said that despite it being a relatively quiet time of year in Cohasset, residents and frequent users of Margin Street bore the brunt of the shoot’s impacts.

Select Chair Keri Thompson said some of the pyrotechnics used on the set also caused issues.

“I do know that there were some people around the filming areas who got woken up in the middle of the night," Thompson said.

Reports from those affected residents left town officials calling the shoot a “learning experience."

“I think when you realize the sheer volume of people involved in something like this, and all the equipment it takes, you start to realize what effects that can have,” Senior said.

With Massachusetts expected to continue offering tax breaks for production companies to film in the Bay State, Senior said a picturesque town like Cohasset could field many more filming requests down the road.

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With that potential on the horizon, he said he expects the town to take a “hard look” at the regulations in place.

Despite the ongoing conversation between the board and the production company leading up to the shoot, several issues that cropped up during filming, such as the traffic problem, went unaddressed.

Neither Senior nor Thompson blamed production.

“They are concerns that would’ve been better if the film crew thought of beforehand,” Senior said. "But, again, they’re also questions we didn’t ask.”

Senior said the production company was “responsive” throughout the process when presented with concerns from the town.

Coupled with their willingness to partner with different organizations in town, such as the schools, St. Anthony’s and the Cohasset Harbor Inn, that responsiveness left officials  with a positive impression.

“I think the overall reaction has been positive,” Senior said. “It’s exciting to have the town be part of a movie. That said, I think it’s going to be important to assess more.”

After enduring the most intense shoot since “Witches of Eastwick” took over the town in the mid-1980s, Senior said the town remains open to the possibility of future movies coming to Cohasset.

“Our position is that we welcome this in town; it’s a great town to show off,” Senior said. “It just can’t be something that’s overtly inconveniencing to many people who live here. We want it to help businesses and such, we don’t just want to be a stage.”

Thompson said, “I think it's fantastic that Cohasset is a Hollywood destination and that there is interest in filming here. People have memories they still talk about going back to the ‘Witches of Eastwick’ days. It was fun to have that kind of energy here this summer, especially with everything going on.”