Downtown Oklahoma City has seen film crews before, but it does not every week get a crane, a row of police cars, a crowd of extras and Jason Momoa grinning across the street. Production on "Copperhead," a crime thriller from Oklahoma director John Swab, was filming in downtown Oklahoma City on Tuesday, October 21, with lights, cameras, extras, police cars and a crane on set, according to The Oklahoman. Portions of Robert S. Kerr and North Broadway avenues around the set were closed Tuesday afternoon, The Oklahoman reported — the kind of street-level footprint that turns an ordinary workday downtown into an impromptu public event.
A small crowd gathered across the street to watch, The Oklahoman reported, and Momoa, in the paper's description, seemed to take the attention in stride, often flashing his familiar wide grin. There is a particular energy to a star of Momoa's size working in a city that is not Los Angeles or Atlanta. People do not pretend not to notice. They bring their phones, they bring their lunch breaks, they bring their kids — and, by The Oklahoman's account, the man at the center of it was happy to meet the moment rather than hide from it. For more entertainment coverage, see the Previously newsroom.
A cast that would get attention anywhere, let alone downtown OKC
"Copperhead" is not a small production sneaking through town. Alongside Momoa, the cast includes Miles Teller of "Top Gun: Maverick," Tenoch Huerta of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," Adria Arjona of "Andor," and Emmy winner Kiefer Sutherland of "24," according to The Oklahoman. That is five recognizable names across five different corners of modern screen culture — a superhero franchise anchor, a blockbuster aviator, a Marvel standout, a Star Wars series favorite and a television icon. Character details for the five stars have not been revealed, The Oklahoman noted, so who each of them is playing in Swab's West Texas conspiracy remains, for now, a genuine mystery.
The Oklahoman also noted that Momoa and Arjona are dating, a detail that will inevitably travel with coverage of this shoot — two co-stars, one production, one very public downtown set. We will leave the relationship reporting to the paper that reported it and keep our focus where it belongs: on the remarkable fact that a cast like this is spending the autumn making a crime thriller in Oklahoma, not on a soundstage an ocean away.
The story: a drug deal, an explosion of violence, and a conspiracy
What is "Copperhead" actually about? According to The Oklahoman, the crime thriller follows a veteran detective who must join forces with a young federal agent to unravel a conspiracy after an undercover drug deal explodes into violence in West Texas. It is a sturdy, classic setup — the mismatched veteran-and-fed pairing is one of crime cinema's most reliable engines — and it fits Swab's established territory precisely. The film is written by Chad Feehan and J. Todd Scott, per The Oklahoman.
John Swab, for readers meeting his name here for the first time, is a Tulsa native known for hometown crime dramas including "Body Brokers," "Little Dixie" and "One Day as a Lion," The Oklahoman reported. His filmography is a sustained argument that Oklahoma is not a backdrop but a character — its roads, its economies, its particular brand of trouble. "Copperhead" is set in West Texas but made in Oklahoma, a common and sensible arrangement in modern production, and one that lets Swab shoot a Southwestern crime story on home ground, with home crews, under a state incentive the production has pre-qualified for, according to The Oklahoman.
Filming through November 6, backed by serious producers
This week's downtown shoot is one chapter of a longer stay. Filming began in September at various Oklahoma City locations, and the shoot runs in Oklahoma through November 6 per the Oklahoma Film + Music Office filming slate, as reported by The Oklahoman. That is roughly two months of production in the state — real jobs, real hotel nights, real catering trucks, real road closures, and a real argument, playing out in public, for Oklahoma's film ambitions.
The backing behind the camera is as notable as the cast in front of it. Financing and production come from Black Label Media — the company behind "La La Land" and "Sicario" — alongside Teller's Lime Tree Productions and Swab's Milk Boy, according to The Oklahoman. Black Label's name on a crime thriller carries weight; "Sicario" is practically the modern template for the tense, morally murky borderlands crime film that "Copperhead" appears to be in conversation with. Add Teller producing through his own banner while also starring, and Swab producing through Milk Boy, and you have a production where the creative principals have skin in the game at every level.
There is no release date in The Oklahoman's reporting, and character details remain under wraps, so the honest summary is this: a well-backed, star-heavy crime thriller is spending its fall in Oklahoma City, it shut down a piece of downtown on a Tuesday afternoon to prove it, and its leading man spent the closure grinning at the crowd across the street. Productions come and go. The ones a city remembers are the ones that felt like an event while they were there. By every account The Oklahoman gathered on Tuesday, "Copperhead" already qualifies. We will be following the shoot through its November 6 wrap in our entertainment and news coverage.
