Secondary shooting started in Cleveland this week (April 21) for Spider-Man 3 and the city could not be happier.

Cleveland beat out Detroit as a stand-in for New York for some of the crashing cars and action sequences involving Spider-Man and Sandman. To accomplish this, Columbia Pictures closed down a good sized section of a main street (Euclid Avenue), power washed the old buildings, and made it into a replica of New York's West Side.

It's been such a trip that the city barely remembers that there is a movie coming out June 30 about a character that was created in Cleveland. What's that other comic guy's name Oh yeah, Superman.

So how's it going?

The studio is being pretty closed-mouth about it and gawkers are kept at a distance, but one of the 250 extras was willing to break rank and talk on the condition of anonymity. I wanted to call him Peter Porker, but not being a big comics fan he didn't get the reference. So instead we'll call him Sam Finkelman.

Sam decided to try out to be one of the extras and ventured into downtown Cleveburg on a Sunday morning in early April. He was not alone.

“There were more than 4,000 people there in the Terminal Tower and Tower City (the downtown shopping center) from all over the place,” he said. “I talked to people who drove all the way in from New York to take a chance.”

Sam, who admits that he has not read a comic since he was a kid, said he likes Spider-Man and was excited to get a chance to rub elbows with Hollywood types.

From the start, Sam knew what they wanted.

“The movie is supposed to be taking place on the Upper West Side of New York, so I dressed appropriately,” he said. “I wore a turtleneck sweater and a jacket, nice slacks, which is how I normally dress. A lot of people showed up wearing Spider-Man t-shirts and jackets, some in full Spider-Man costumes. I don't know how they ever expected to be picked.”

Most were not.

About a week after filling out forms, turning in a photograph and listing measurements of his shoes and clothing, Sam got a call to report to work at 6:30 a.m. and be prepared to stay until 6:30 p.m. for the next eight days.

Sam refused to say how much the gig pays, but say it's small. “You don't do this for the money, you do it for the experience,” he said.

Because Sam had a car that fit the requirements of the studio, he became one of the 50 extras who will drive cars in several scenes, including a great fight scene between Spidey and Sandman, who has stolen an armored car.

They had to train to drive and it sounded pretty harrowing.The drivers were taken to a local airport where the stunt directors had set up a course. The instructions sounded pretty simple: drive at precisely 15 miles an hour and keep an exact distance apart from the car in front of you.

“They had us practice this over and over until they were sure that we had it down,” Sam said. “On the fifth time, they told us to look only at the car in front of us and not brake or speed up. Then a huge Chrysler 300C came up and veered in and out of our cars.”

They practiced that until everyone could do it without having to change their underwear. He said they learned to do exactly what they were asked and nothing else, if they didn't want to get hurt.

“We had to ignore our instincts and do nothing as a huge car came right at us,” he said. “You have to develop this tunnel vision and ignore that car and the trucks with the camera and other equipment all around.”

And like Ginger Rogers to Fred Astaire, sometimes they had to do it backwards.

“For many of the scenes we're driving backwards to get back to our start positions,” Sam said. “It's pretty amazing and we're getting good at it. Though it's weird to do it on Euclid Avenue.” Actually, Euclid Avenue is looking pretty good.

One of the reasons Cleveland was chosen for the secondary location was because of the number of vacant stores. The studio put up fake storefronts, fixed up the shops, put in fancy displays and generally made Euclid Avenue look like New York City. “The stores look great,“ Sam said. “But when you take a deeper look inside you see that the interior of the shops are still empty.”

As of this writing (Tuesday night), Sam had not seen hide nor web of any of the stars in the flick, although the stuntman Spidey is all over the place. The studio says none of the main actors will be in town, but many remain hopeful and scour the clubs and expensive restaurants. Sam said the stuntman is earning his pay.

“The poor guy lies on a rug and is being pulled down the street by a truck that has a camera mounted on it,” Sam said. “Man, that looks painful.”

Even early on, Sam said there have been some major car wrecks staged that look pretty impressive. He said they have a truck with a camera hard-mounted into a frame, The truck crashes into other vehicles, so it will make the viewer feel like he had a front seat view of a car accident. Which he did.

“There was a scene where a scene where Sandman is driving an armored truck and Spiderman punches through it,” Sam said. “When he does, the truck fills up with sand, which pushes down the accelerator causing it to crash.” “They have these explosive charges they put in the back of the car,” Sam said. “When they go off, they blow the car into the air. The stunts are amazing.”

Director Sam Raimi and his special effects crew will use computer generation for some of the effects, including making many of the buildings look like skyscrapers.

Sam said he has been waiting on his mark in the middle of the street for about an hour. There is a lot of standing around and waiting on the movie set. But Sam doesn't mind. He's having a blast.

Lucky bastard.