The $25 million Warner Bros. Christmas comedy "Unaccompanied Minors" was shot entirely in Utah this spring. Director Gore Verbinski shot Johnny Depp for a day on the Bonneville Salt Flats for the third in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. Many low-budget films - "Forever Strong," "Bonneville," "American Pastime," "Wieners" and "National Lampoon's The Bag Boy" among them - were shot in the state.
Utah-made films will be shown in Park City next month. "Dark Matter," co-starring Meryl Streep, and Crispin Glover's "It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine" will screen at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, while "American Fork" will premiere at the rival Slamdance Film Festival.
Meanwhile, the most famous movie ever shot in Utah, John Ford's "The Searchers," marked its 50th anniversary with a pristine DVD release and an August outdoor screening in Monument Valley.
Other highlights of the year in movies in Utah:
* Who's a cowboy? Auto magnate Larry H. Miller pulled "Brokeback Mountain" from his Megaplex 17 theater hours before it was to screen there in January, citing the gay-sheepherder storyline. News of the cancellation went worldwide, cementing for some the stereotype of bigoted Utahns - and even inspiring a "Brokeback Mormons" float in an Australian gay-pride parade. The film's distributor, Focus Features, has kept its word and not booked another movie in Miller's theaters.
* Mormon Cinema on the skids: Miller bankrolled the third, and probably last, of the "Work and the Glory" films, which opened in November to lukewarm business. It capped a dismal year for LDS-themed movies. HaleStorm Entertainment had mediocre box office with "Church Ball" and "Suits on the Loose" and announced plans to make more mainstream films (though a "Singles Ward" sequel is in the works). To add insult to injury, a fire gutted filmmaker Richard Dutcher's Mapleton offices in March.
* Spy Hop hits high: The teen filmmakers at Salt Lake's Spy Hop Productions scored a hit, as Alex Mack and Diana Montero got their short documentary "Mother Superior" into Sundance. Calcutta-born Avijit Halder, one of the kids in the Oscar-winning doc "Born Into Brothels," made his own film in a Spy Hop workshop.
* Life after 'Napoleon': Brigham Young University alum Jared Hess, director of "Napoleon Dynamite," scored a modest hit on his second outing, "Nacho Libre." Napoleon himself, BYU grad Jon Heder, starred in "School for Scoundrels" and "The Benchwarmers." Another former BYU student, playwright/director Neil LaBute, stumbled with a much-mocked remake of the thriller "The Wicker Man."
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* SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602.
