Anthony Mackie, who stars in the new Colorado-shot film “Elevation,” will visit the 47th Denver Film Festival next week, producers announced.
The fest, which runs Friday, Nov. 1 through Sunday, Nov 10, includes hundreds of screenings, panels, workshops, and parties; other celebs such as Patricia Clarkson, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, are also confirmed. But adding Mackie and the local premiere of “Elevation” is a last-minute coup, given his high profile in recent years.
“Elevation,” premiering nationally on Nov. 8, co-stars Morena Baccarin in its post-apocalyptic road tale. Mackie’s character and a pair of women “venture from the safety of their homes to face monstrous creatures to save the life of a young boy,” according to a studio synopsis.
Mackie’s 5 p.m. event on Monday, Nov. 4, in Denver, includes the Colorado premiere of “Elevation” with MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, followed by a post-film Q&A with Mackie and director George Nolfi. Tickets are on sale now for $27.31 (including the service fee) at denverfilmfestival.eventive.org/schedule.
Mackie, who’s best known as winged Avenger Falcon and the new Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the MCU’s “Brave New World” is scheduled for a Feb. 14, 2025 release) plays a single father in the post-apocalyptic Rocky Mountains — a trope that’s getting another flogging here, following a decades-long string of movies, TVs and video games that depict Colorado as ground zero for nuclear holocausts, zombies and hostile aliens.
Principal photography for “Elevation” began in November 2022 in various Colorado locations, and finished up in late March 2023. At the time it started, “Elevation” was confirmed as “the biggest production to come to Colorado since (Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 film) ‘The Hateful Eight,’” wrote Colorado film commissioner Donald Zuckerman in an email to The Denver Post.
The film was mostly shot around Golden and Boulder, with George Nolfi directing, and Brad Fuller as principal producer, Zuckerman said. It cost about $18 million while employing nearly 300 cast and crew, according to the Denver Business Journal.