Boston Marathon Bombing Movie Seeks to Recreate Watertown Shootout

April 19, 2013, was a day many who live in a normally quiet neighborhood in Watertown, Massachusetts, will never forget.

"I didn't think we were going to make it through the night I really didn't, it was very, very scary," said Loretta Kehayias, a Laurel Street resident who witnessed the shootout.

And now a production team for the upcoming Mark Wahlburg movie "Patriots' Day" is in town mapping out the firefights on Laurel Street and Dexter Avenue.

Their plan is to recreate the shootout during filming scheduled for the first week in May.

And they've sent these fliers to homeowners asking for their approval.

Ryta Mullen, who has lived on Laurel Street her entire life, said, "There may be some people here that maybe are still traumatized by it, I am not one of them but there could be people that are going to be affected by it."

"I'm not against it," Kehayias added. "I think other people should really see what we really went through because you tell some people and they're like, 'what?'"

For some residents their only concern is the warning from producers that there will be overnight simulated gunshot noise until approximately midnight each night.

"We're just a little concerned it'll be disruptive to nap time schedules," said Laurel Street resident Rachel Longacre, who has a 10-month-old son named Nate. "But other than that, it's exciting."

"They said they would put us up in a hotel if we needed to stay somewhere else during the shooting," said Dexter Avenue resident Eric Warner.

But for others who lived through this, while they're not opposed to the movie, they're concerned what memories the filming of it will bring back to them.

Robert Mullen lives on Laurel Street and witnessed the gun battle.

"Obviously, listening to the gunshots and seeing them react all the scenes and play it all out, although you know what's happening, it's just a movie, it still brings it back," he explained.

Preparation for filming is scheduled to begin April 25, with filming starting May 2 and lasting about a week.

Homeowners have been told they will be compensated for any intrusion into their property, although no homeowners we spoke with today had been told exactly what that compensation would be.

Contact Us