‘Lady in the Lake’ stops filming after shooting threats

NEW YORK

Production on Apple TV+’s “Lady in the Lake” series, starring Natalie Portman, had to temporarily shut down production after someone threatened to shoot up the Baltimore set, according to police.

A group of drug dealers threatened to begin firing on set unless the producers paid them $50,000, the Baltimore Banner reported on Aug. 28.

Instead, producers “decided to err on the side of caution and reschedule the shoot after they found another location,” police spokesman James Moses told the outlet.

“Friday afternoon, on the Baltimore set of our production ‘Lady in the Lake,’ prior to the arrival of the cast and crew, per their call time, a driver on our production crew was confronted by two men, one of whom brandished a gun directed at our driver, and then they fled the location. We are working with the Baltimore Police Department as the investigation is ongoing,” Endeavor Content, the studio behind the series, told Deadline in a statement.

“The safety and security of our crew, cast and all who work across our productions is our highest priority, and we are thankful no one was injured. Production will resume with increased security measures going forward.”

“Lady in the Lake,” based on the novel by former Baltimore Sun reporter Laura Lippman, is set in 1960s Baltimore, where “an unsolved murder pushes a housewife and mother to reinvent herself as an investigative journalist,” according to Apple TV+.

“That sets her on a collision course with a hard-working woman juggling motherhood, many jobs, and a passionate commitment to advancing Baltimore’s Black progressive agenda,” reads the official description.

Portman plays Jewish housewife Maddie Schwartz, who is hunting down answers in the death of Cleo Sherwood (“Obi-Wan Kenobi” star Moses Ingram), a Black Civil Rights activist whose body is found in a city park lake.