The Lure of the Amazon

The Amazon has been one of those fascinating locations that Hollywood has often gone to, without going there. In the old days, jungle sets were created on sound stages. But today’s more sophisticated viewers expect the real thing and they got a pretty good look at the forests around Belem in John Boorman’s 1985 “The Emerald Forest.”

With world attention focused on the South American rain forest, filmmakers are more anxious than ever to load up on inoculations and head for the jungle. Besides “At Play in the Fields of the Lord,” the Amazon is being visited for these film projects:

Amazon: an action-adventure story about a Finnish man who ends up in Brazil after pulling the plug on his comatose wife at home. Stars Finnish actor Kari Vaananen and Americans Robert Davi and Rae Dawn Chong. Finland’s Mika Kaurismaki directs and co-produces. The film premieres in Finland next month; no American distributor has been set.

The Stand: a love story from screenwriter Tom Schulman, reuniting director John McTiernan with his “Hunt for Red October” star Sean Connery. The film is scheduled to go into production in the Amazon in January.

Rain Forest: a fictional story involving a Chico Mendes-like environmentalist, being written by Lewis John Carlino for producer Robert Redford.

The Chico Mendes Story: No title has been determined for the Warner Bros. film that will be produced by David Puttnam from a script by William Mastrosimone. The script is based, in part, on former Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s “The Burning Season,” a current nonfiction account of the Mendes legend.