A movie shoot for ‘She’s All That’ remake almost temporarily closed a Los Angeles coronavirus testing site

A movie shoot at a Los Angeles landmark nearly temporarily shut down a coronavirus testing site, until city officials stepped in.

More than 500 people had appointments to be tested Tuesday at Union Station, according to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The area was also the site of a movie shoot scheduled to happen on the same day.

People with appointments to get tested at the site were notified by testing site operator Curative on Monday that the location would be closed due to an event, as first reported by Deadline.

News of the testing site’s closure quickly garnered backlash online, with many commenting that the location is one of the city’s most accessible testing sites.

Los Angeles County Public Health reported its highest-ever single day Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations on Tuesday, just one day after surpassing 400,000 total cases. The city went under a new stay-at-home order on Monday, as cases surge.

Not long after the backlash, Garcetti issued a statement on Twitter announcing that the Union Station testing site would reopen. He did not mention the film shoot.

“The 504 Angelenos who were scheduled for a test there can visit the kiosk as originally planned or any of the other 14 City sites, where we offer 38K tests daily,” the mayor tweeted.

Morlin Asset Management, the property management company for Union Station, had notified the mayor’s office Monday afternoon regarding the closure of the testing kiosk, a spokesperson for the mayor told the Los Angeles Times.

This all boils down to “an internal bureaucratic snafu,”Jim Yeager, spokesman for Morlin Asset Management, told CNN. “This was a miscommunication within the company,” he said.

Ralph Barnes, vice president of Morlin Asset Management, told the LA Times: “We’re proud that Union Station has been and continues to serve as a valuable and readily accessible free resource for COVID testing for Angelenos. This was an unfortunate mix-up between everyone involved in making these tests possible, including the station, Curative and government officials, which led to the mistaken cancellation of today’s tests, which we’re happy to report was corrected last night.”

Curative, which runs the testing site, confirmed the location was up and running on Tuesday.

“To clarify any previous confusion, we are confirming the site will be open for normal operation today,” Curative said in a statement to CNN.

The film shoot went on as planned for a permitted film called ‘He’s All That,'” said Philip Sokoloski, a spokesman for FilmLA, which processes applications for film permits.

The movie is the remake of the 1999 rom-com “She’s All That,” which featured Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook. The shoot involves some exterior establishing shots and interior dialogue, with a total cast and crew size of around 170.

“FilmLA did not, and never would, seek the closure of a City-operated COVID-19 testing center to accommodate filming,” Sokoloski said. “Neither we, the City permit authority, nor the production company asked that this be done at Union Station.”

The organization said it first heard of the testing site closing on Monday night.

“FilmLA first learned of the testing site’s closure Monday evening, after community members reached out to express their concern,” Sokoloski said. “We were disappointed by what we learned, and immediately helped escalate the situation to City attention.”