<P> Three actresses were top - runners for the role of Art3mis: Elle Fanning, Olivia Cooke, and Lola Kirke; In September 2015, Cooke was announced as having been cast in the coveted female lead role . In January 2016, Ben Mendelsohn joined the cast . In February 2016, Tye Sheridan was confirmed as playing the lead role of Wade, after a lengthy nationwide casting call failed to produce an unknown for the part . In March 2016, Simon Pegg joined the cast . In April 2016, Mark Rylance joined the cast, and in June 2016, T.J. Miller, Hannah John - Kamen and Win Morisaki also joined . In July 2016, Philip Zhao joined the cast, and Lena Waithe, Ralph Ineson, McKenna Grace, and Letitia Wright were later also announced to have been cast . </P> <P> Production was set to begin in July 2016 . Screenwriter Zak Penn tweeted on July 1, 2016 that the first week of filming had been completed . In August and September 2016, filming took place in Birmingham, England; this included Livery Street in the Jewellery Quarter area of the city, which was extensively used, including the van chase that takes place towards the film's end . The chase was edited to make the street appear longer than it actually is . The backpackers' hostel Hatters, also on Livery Street, was used for internal filming for a basement scene . Also utilized was the Ludgate Hill Car Park lot on Lionel Street, in which caravan homes were partially built; a planned explosion caused some local business and homes to call emergency services, as no prior notification were given by the production . Other locations in the city included the former industrial area of Digbeth, with a rooftop scene that overlooks the Birmingham City Centre skyline, with some of the city's landmark buildings being erased and replaced with CGI buildings in order to create a dystopian Ohio in the year 2045 . Principal photography ended on September 27, 2016 . </P> <P> Spielberg worked with Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to oversee the film's visual effects, meeting with ILM for 3 hours three times a week . He has stated that "(t) his is the most difficult movie I've done since Saving Private Ryan ." </P> <P> A significant part of the film takes place in a virtual space based on the Overlook Hotel in the film The Shining . This was mostly a digital recreation of the film using high - quality telecine of the original film, giving them some freedom of new camera angles and shots that could be generated from this recreation . The final film includes a combination of the original footage from The Shining and ILM's additional work . Only a few scenes in this sequence which involved real actors, such as the appearance of the Grady twins, required them to construct a faithful reproduction of The Shining's set for the actors to interact with . Finally, the sequence was post-processed to introduce film grain and other aging effects to make the new footage indistinguishable from the original film . </P>

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