There are reports today that the Gerard Butler film “Machine Gun Preacher” has started filming in Metro Detroit.
The film location website beforethetrailer.com is reporting that the film is shooting at the “Chevy dealership on Ford Rd.” which they refer to as being in Westland.
The dealership the site is likely describing is Gordon Chevrolet on Ford Rd. between Merriman and Venoy roads in Garden City.
“Machine Gun Preacher” is based on the true story of Sam Childers, a missionary in southern Sudan who really is referred to as the “Machine Gun Preacher.”
Childers is a former gang biker and drug dealer from Pennsylvania who became a member of the Assembly of God church and later visited Sudan.
While in Africa, he witnessed the work of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a militant group in northern Uganda and southern Sudan that captured children and forced them to be child soldiers and sex slaves.
Butler will play the role of Childers in the film, which is directed by “Kite Runner” and “Monster’s Ball” director Marc Forster.
Michelle Monaghan (“Made of Honor,” “Gone Baby Gone”) will play the role of Childers’ wife Lynn.
Butler has actually been in Metro Detroit since the end of June, having been spotted in numerous Detroit area restaurants and bars including Roast at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit and Rosie O’Grady’s in Ferndale.