The film crew is in Madison ready to begin filming “The Noel Diary”, starring Justin Hartley (“This is Us”) and Treat Williams (“Everwood”).

Netflix has acquired the rights to Richard Paul Evan’s New York Times bestselling novel “The Noel Diary”.

“The next adaptation of this holiday-themed story is about a man receiving the best Christmas present he could ask for: the chance to rewrite his past,” according to whats-on-netflix.com.

Lori Fazio, COO at RJ Julia Booksellers, noted that the RJ Café will be open all day Saturday, but customers won’t be able to spot stars or actors from their tables.

“They are going to block it completely,” she said.

For the third day of filming for this film, the crews and stars will be at the RJ Julia in Madison and the Griswold Inn in Essex.

“Part of the story is that we have two people who are kind of strangers and they go on a trip together, over Christmas time, and one of them is a famous author,” explained the deputy director of the site spoke on condition of anonymity by his contract.

“So the other one doesn’t know about it, but she stops in a bookstore and finds her book and buys it and that’s how she finds out how famous he is,” he said. he adds. “So that’s what we do in the bookstore.”

The former location of Khaki & Black, next to the bookstore and currently unoccupied, will be used by the team.

“It works great for us to put some of our backstory cast on stage, so they get ready and they can just walk right next to it, so we praised that,” the location’s deputy director said. .

He explains how RJ Julia was chosen.

“We have a team of people who are in my department to take a look at the scouts and we charge them to say to them, ‘We have to find the most charming bookstore out of a postcard’ , and it happens to be in Madison, ”he explained.

This shoot is scheduled immediately after the crew film the main characters in Essex.

“We use the Griswold Inn as an inn,” he says. “We have a scene there that plays like a New England inn.”

“It’s a question of the look,” he added. “How do we find what we are looking for that is in our travel line? “

He explained that the entire movie is shot exclusively in Connecticut, including Bridgeport, Essex, Madison, Manchester and New Canaan.

He pointed out that the film crew worked closely with the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development – Office of Film, Television and Digital Media to make connections in each city and obtain the necessary permits.

“It’s a particularly big team and it’s a ton of work to get from place to place for sure,” said executive producer Andrew Gernhard of Johnson Production Group CT.

He spoke about choosing Madison and Essex for the filming locations.

“It’s a Christmas movie, so it’s all about the texture and feel of the movie and it just looks great,” Gernhard said of RJ Julia.

“Gray is awesome,” he added. “We did a movie years ago called ‘Christmas at Pemberley Manor’, and Essex as a whole looks wonderful for any kind of movie, for sure.”

Madison and Essex are eager to welcome film crews to town.

“It’s very exciting, especially with the pandemic, we haven’t really seen any activity,” said Michele Call, deputy director of the Madison Chamber of Commerce.

“So seeing a movie shot in our little downtown is normal again and it’s normal exciting, as if it would have been before the pandemic,” she added.

Madison First Selectwomen Peggy Lyons echoes this.

“I think it’s really exciting for our city to be in a Netflix movie and it shows how great an environment we have here in Madison,” she said.

While Essex First Selectman Norm Needleman believes the forecast for storms this weekend will keep some fans away, he has enlisted the help of the police and the Public Works Department to minimize the disruption.

“I think they (the film crew) are constantly revising the way they distribute it, but we’re doing everything we can to accommodate them and work together,” Needleman said.

“We want this to work for everyone,” he added. “It’s good for the city, good for the state.

In Madison, the police, fire department and the first selectman’s office have been working with the production company for the past two weeks “to make sure that we keep as much free parking for visitors to town and that there is the less disruption possible. . “

“It will be somewhat disruptive,” Lyons said. “Filming only takes place in the evening, but there is a lot of equipment and a lot of planning, so they’ll start coming into town at noon.”

Needleman sums up what it means to his city that the film crew chooses them.

“It’s just pretty cool,” he says. “It reaffirms the fact that we are in this quintessential beautiful New England town.”