Looking for ‘Rodeo Drive’? Try Mexico City

When Nelson Entertainment realized that it wouldn’t be able to film its violent “The Taking of Beverly Hills” on the real Rodeo Drive, it went to Mexico City to build a duplicate. The set, designed to actual size, is located at a sports facility in the northeastern sector of the Mexican capital.

In the Sidney Furie-directed movie, Ken Wahl, Matt Frewer and Robert Davi star--Davi as an evil mastermind who plots to take over Beverly Hills, shut it down and rob every store on pricey Rodeo Drive. Production spokesman Steve Ruben said the film calls for the near destruction of the avenue’s famed shops, “like a street in Beirut,” so using the actual street was out of the question.

Production designer Peter Lamont (designer of many James Bond films, “Aliens” and “Fiddler on the Roof”) said he haunted the real drive for three months to gather detail and shoot photographs. He said the cost of building Mexico City’s Rodeo Drive was $2 million, versus an estimated $5 million to construct it in Los Angeles.

Release is expected in early 1991.