Heist movie Ocean’s 8 filmed in New York’s Met

Director Gary Ross and his production team secured permission to spend two weeks filming overnight in the real Metropolitan Museum of Art, from 5:30pm through to dawn.

“I called ‘safety’ meetings for the art, as we would for a major stunt,” says Ross. “I mean, literally, one false move and you’ve wrecked more than the budget of the movie, so we had to be very, very careful.

“We had extensive meetings with The Met about what we were going to do, letting them know every single movement: how we would load in and out, where the cameras could be and where they couldn’t.

"We designed our shot list accordingly and stuck to the plan. We all remained vigilant the entire time we were there and got out without a calamity.”

Sets of the Met’s interiors were also built at Gold Coast Studios on Long Island for scenes set in and around a fictional exhibition that is central to the film’s story.

The sets were interconnecting so that the production team could move easily between story settings during the shoot.

The film’s heroes target a Cartier necklace and the production’s partnership with the jeweller enabled Ross and his team to spend a couple of days filming in Manhattan’s Cartier Mansion.

Other locations included Vogue’s headquarters at One World Trade Center, the Plaza Hotel and Christie’s at Rockefeller Plaza.

New York City remains one of America’s most iconic filming locations and offers generous incentive support. Nonetheless, many productions still choose to use other parts of the US as stand-ins for the east coast city, especially for action scenes as stunt work can be a challenge in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs.

The New York-set Spider-Man: Homecoming filmed largely in Georgia and Fast and the Furious 8 (AKA The Fate of the Furious) doubled Cleveland, Ohio, for New York.

See KFTV's production guide for more on filming in New York.

Images: Barry Wetcher/Ron Batzdorff/Warner Bros Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures