The intense realism of a crash on Chicago's Columbus Drive bridge on Monday caught some passersby off-guard.
But the whole setup was part of an on-location shoot for a TV show pilot called "Chicago Fire" that NBC may pick up in the fall. The show focuses on the men and women of the Chicago Fire Department and their everyday heroics.
The show is being produced by Dick Wolf, the same man who created the highly-successful and long-running drama "Law and Order." Jesse Spencer is rumored to play a firefighter assigned to Station 55. Along with Spencer, Taylor Kinney and Monica Raymond are reportedly playing characters in the series.
"If [Wolf's] track record for the other series is anything like this series then it could be a tremendous success for us," said Rich Moskal with the Chicago Film Office.
The year is shaping up to be a banner year for filming in and around Chicago. The Starz network's "Boss," starring Kelsey Grammer, will soon be filming its second season, and Moskal said MTV and other production companies are also working on projects.
"We've been seeing, frankly, a lot of television pilots and television series shooting in Chicago," he said.
The 2011 filming of the Transformers movie did a lot, Moskal said, to put the Windy City on the big and small screens.
"What it did was also send a very strong and important message to other producers that Chicago is a place that can accommodate a picture like that," he said.
