As of September 1, 2011, ALL 1,875 retail establishments are prohibited from providing light-weight, single-use plastic carryout bags to customers at the point of sale. MORE

By Lookout Staff

October 18, 2011 -- Shooting on Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen started Monday, Santa Monica-based film and television studio Lionsgate announced.

The former governor joins a cast that includes Forest Whitaker, Luis Guzman, Johnny Knoxville and Harry Dean Stanton on location in New Mexico and Nevada, where he plays a burned out LAPD officer who's escaped the big city to serve as sheriff in a sleepy border town.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger will bring incredible magnetism to this complex but classic role,” said President of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group Joe Drake when the picture was first announced. “In this film, the Sheriff Owens character grapples with some really tough stuff, but ultimately triumphs, and we knew he’d truly elevate this high octane ride.”

The action thriller centers around a showdown between law enforcement officers who descend on the town of Summerton Junction near the Mexican border, where Schwarzenegger, as Sheriff Owens, has retired from Los Angeles after a bungled operation, and an escaped drug kingpin and his henchmen who are trying to flee the country.

Korean action-suspense director Kim Jee-Woon (“A Tale of Two Sisters,” “The Good, The Bad, The Weird”) will direct the film, based on a spec script by Andrew Knauer that was subsequently rewritten by Jeffrey Nachmanoff.

The Santa Monica-based entertainment company has generated more than half a billion dollars at the North American box office in the past year. Among Lionsgate's film hits are “The Expendables,” “Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family,” “Saw 3D” and “Precious,” and its home entertainment business accounts for 8 per cent of the market share, with four-time Emmy winning "Mad Men," "Weeds" and "Nurse Jackie" leading its roster.

Lionsgate Headquarters are located in Santa Monica, and plans have been underway since 2007 for them to move to a new site on Stewart Street, but some residents and community groups have opposed the proposed development because of what they anticipate will be its effect on traffic and the quality of life in the neighborhood.

In July, the City Council approved the project's development agreement. The developer must now submit plans to the city's Architectural Review Board.