Photo credit James Maguire
Students who play sports at the Franklin K. Lane Educational Campus, on the Brooklyn-Queens border, have a reason to thank the producers of the last Spider-Man movie.
The filmmakers wrote the school a $42,000 check after filming the 2017 movie, "Spider-Man: Homecoming" at the campus.
"The company paid for the entire sports program for the year," said James Maguire, the assistant principal at the Franklin K. Lane Educational Campus.
Marvel Entertainment and Columbia Pictures made the donation after spending four days shooting at the school in 2016.
The school's field and exterior are featured at the beginning of the film.
Using the school was a natural decision for the movie's production team. Spider-Man, also known as Peter Parker, grew up in Queens. The film is about his time during high school as he developed his supernatural powers.
Other productions, movies and TV shows have also shoot at city schools in return for a donation to the affected school and payment for all related costs.
"It's a win-win, not just for our school but any school building that takes on the somewhat painstaking process of getting a movie made in a building," said Maguire.
The Department of Education told NY1 that it doesn't track the number of movie and TV shoots held at schools, or the donation amounts paid by the producers. However, they said that productions for TBS, NBC and PBS have all used city schools for filming in recent months.
The Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment said it too does not track shoots at city schools, but said that movie and television production in the city is on the rise.
"We have an incredible talent base right here in the city. We also have iconic locations…We have a team that is basically functions as a one-stop shop for productions that want to shoot on location here," said Anne del Castillo, the commissioner at the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.
But with great power comes with great responsibility, and so school officials don't allow just anyone to film on school property.
"There is approval at the school level, approval at the central level, approval by the media office, approval by the legal office, approval by the chancellor," said Maguire.
The next Spider-Man movie made the cut. Filmmakers returned to Franklin K. Lane for three days of filming last year for the next movie in the series, "Spider-Man: Far From Home." The film is set to be released this summer.