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In January we told you about the movie, Mega-Piranhas which was being filmed in Belize. Well, the low budget sci-fi thriller is finished and will premier tomorrow night. The one and a half hour movie, features the popular Days of Our Lives star, Paul Logan, and the once famous child star Barry Williams of the Brady Bunch.

It’s not opening with a Hollywood-premiere, complete with red carpet fanfare under the dazzling lights of a glowing marquee.…no, Mega-Piranhas is being rolled out tomorrow night on the Sci Fi channel as one of its many small budget productions meant to satisfy the cravings of science fiction movie buffs. And while the ravenous flesh eating Piranha fish cannot be found in Belizean waters…. rivers, forests and reefs are plentiful in Belize. That – along with minimal production costs are what led the Hollywood producers to this perfect destination.

Pulu Lightburn was one of the locals selected to act in the movie and he also coordinated the production. He told us why the B in this movie, is for Belize.

Pulu Lightburn, Co-Star
“It is a location for rivers and forests and what happened was that they have done about 70% of the shooting was done in Hollywood and they needed some live river scenes with forests and they wanted some Latin/Central American looking scenes and they went online and hooked up with Ariloo which is a production company and equipment company in Belize and they joined along with the Film Commissioner Nigel Miguel and brought these guys to Belize.”

Jim McFadzean,
“What role did you play?”

Pulu Lightburn,
“In the movie my role is the boat captain. What happened is this guy is a Navy Seals who came to this little small Latin country to investigate the death of an Ambassador who died while he was up river having fun. They were on a boat, the boat capsized and he died and he was a Navy Seals and Washington sent him to this country to find out what exactly happened to the Ambassador. And when he came down, he had to use the boat to go up river to do his investigation and I just happened to be the only boat driver that was willing to take him. Everyone was afraid of going upriver in the movie because of all the mystery and people dying up there from unforeseen circumstances. So that was my role and I ended up on the river with him doing some dialogue and I got scared.

Everything in Belize that they needed was kind of central. It was within an hour of each other. For example we did some shooting at Yabra Bridge, a car chase scene. We spent all day doing it and from there we had to go up to Burrell Boom near Black Orchid to do some river scenes and then the other scenes were by the Vernon Street Fish Market Bridge and then to the reef off St. George’s Caye which was less than an hour again to do some underwater shots. So it was all, the locations were all relative for them so it worked out beautiful.”

According to Lightburn, approximately one third of the One Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand US dollar budget, was spent in Belize. The movie airs at 7:00 tomorrow night right here on Channel 7.