“The Way Back,” the Ben Affleck recovery drama about a high school basketball coach, was filmed in part at Ontario’s Chaffey High, as this newspaper has reported. It turns out scenes involving a Catholic church were also filmed in Ontario — but not at a Catholic church.

Instead, First United Methodist Church on Euclid Avenue at I Street was chosen by filmmakers.

“They couldn’t help but find us. We’re only a block from Chaffey,” said Meredith Freeman, who’s on the church’s governing board. She told me that Upland’s Methodist church was scouted first but that the building was too modern for what filmmakers were looking for.

The Ontario building dates to 1956. “The Big White Church” is what its website, churchoneuclid.org, calls it. The congregation formed in 1883 — 918 N. Euclid Ave. is its third home — and says it is Ontario’s oldest church.

“The Way Back” is about a former high school basketball star, now an alcoholic construction worker, who finds redemption when he accepts a job coaching at his alma mater. It was released March 6, shortly before theaters shut down.

Freeman said filming took place over four days in the church parlor, which in the film is a rector’s office, and in the chapel. Catholic iconography was added temporarily in the form of art for the walls and a statue out front.

Catered lunch for the cast and crew was brought in every day, with church members invited to share. Affleck ate in the kitchen and was seen only from afar. “He didn’t need a bunch of people gawking at him,” Freeman said sympathetically.

Much of “The Way Back” was filmed in San Pedro, but about one-third of the movie is said to have been shot in the Chaffey gym. (The film was then known as “Torrance.” Tough break, Torrance.)

“The Way Back” earned $13.7 million in its two weeks in theaters. (It’s now on video on demand.) There had been preliminary discussions about hosting a screening at Chaffey’s Gardiner Spring Auditorium before the plug was pulled.

I had hoped to see it somewhere in Ontario. I’d done that by chance with “Ford v Ferrari” and found to my surprise that some scenes were filmed at Ontario International Airport. But I didn’t get to “The Way Back” before theaters shut down.

“I haven’t seen it either,” Freeman admitted. “Just as the church organized a trip to go, the lockdown happened.”

Incidentally, this is at least the second Affleck movie to film in Ontario. 2012’s “Argo” used ONT as a stand-in for Tehran Airport. However, I would urge City Hall to hold off on giving Affleck a key to the city — do they still do that? — until he’s eaten at local icon Vince’s Spaghetti.

On repeat

Many have remarked that life during the shutdown has been like “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray’s character, forced to relive the same day with no end in sight, says: “What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”

“This is comedy that operates, at its edges, as horror,” Megan Garber wrote last month in The Atlantic after watching it again. You can make the comparison yourself at Montclair’s still-functioning Mission Tiki Drive-In, which is now showing the movie at 8 p.m., paired with the recent “Jumanji: The Next Level.”

Friday and Saturday the movie screened not only at 8 p.m. but a second time at 12:40 a.m., for anyone who wanted to heighten the sense that they were trapped in a loop.

IE in the NYT

Did you hear about the New York Times devoting its front page May 24 to listing the names of 1,000 coronavirus victims? That amounted to 1% of the total of the 100,000 dead and was an attempt to personalize a number that’s hard to grasp.

I scrolled through the list online to see if our area was represented, and it was. Let me quote each local mention in full:

• “April 8. Owned Frainee Water Trucks for 44 years. Vincent G. Frainee, 68, Redlands, Calif.”

• “April 20. Los Angeles sports fan. Paul Martinez, 70, West Covina, Calif.”

• “May 6. Housekeeper at Riverside Community Hospital for 25 years. Rosa Luna, 68, California.”

• “May 8. Fell ill in prison shortly before he was to be released. Melford Henson, 65, Chino, Calif.”

It’s the worst way possible to make the New York Times, but we thank the newspaper of record for remembering us.

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Virus Vignette

I was curious how the number of coronavirus deaths compared to flu deaths in San Bernardino County. So I asked the county’s Public Health Department.

In the flu season from November 2018 through March 2019, the most recent numbers available, the flu killed 25. Meanwhile, the virus has killed 199 as of Friday’s count, and that’s only since March 24. Of that 199, 23 have died just since Tuesday’s count. (But by all means, let’s reopen everything.)

So, eight times more fatalities, and in under half the time, and the virus likely isn’t done yet. It’s a sobering note on which to end a column, but these are sobering times.

David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, grimly. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.

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