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Last year, Portland movie buffs were abuzz with the news that Brian Cox, the acclaimed Scottish character actor who played Logan Roy on HBO’s Succession, was in town filming Little Wing, a film about pigeon racing.
Now, we have filmed evidence that the whole thing wasn’t a fever dream. Paramount+ has released the first trailer for Little Wing, which will begin streaming on Wednesday, March 31.
Little Wing is inspired by the 2006 New Yorker article of the same name by Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief), the bestselling author who is a former Portlander and WW contributor. The film stars Brooklynn Prince as Kaitlyn, a 13-year-old girl who becomes obsessed with pigeon racing in the wake of her parents’ divorce.
Directed by Dean Israelite (Are You Afraid of the Dark?) and written by Oscar nominee John Gatins (Flight), the production was unmissable last year in Portland. Lanes on the Hawthorne Bridge closed for filming, and Cinemagic changed its marquee to advertise Stand by Me for a scene shot nearby.
Portland appears to play significant role in the film. The trailer is rife with recognizable images (including TriMet bus stops and KOIN Tower), and one character delightedly declares that pigeon racing happens “right here...in Portland!”
While the film has the potential to be treacly hokum, the cast is seriously stacked. Prince gave an astounding performance in Sean Baker’s The Florida Project, and any movie that features the cantankerous Cox (who also played memorable villains in X2 and The Bourne Supremacy) is worth seeking out.