MOVIES
‘The End of Oak Street’ takes place in Metro Detroit. What to look for
Metro Detroit-born writer-director David Robert Mitchell sets his new sci-fi adventure in the suburbs of Metro Detroit
Adam GrahamThe Detroit News
Aug. 11, 2026, 12:17 a.m. ET
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Dinosaurs invade Metro Detroit in “The End of Oak Street,” the new sci-fi action film from writer-director (and Clawson native) David Robert Mitchell
Mitchell set the movie in Flowervale, a fictional suburb of Metro Detroit. And while Michigan or Detroit is never mentioned explicitly in the film, there are signs and cues to suburban Detroit all over the film
They include an early reference in the movie to Michigan Bell; a Tigers-Rangers game on a radio, with a name check of former Tigers catcher Lance Parrish; a Faygo bottle; a copy of a Detroit newspaper that looks an awful lot like the Detroit Free Press; a Tigers cup placed on a dresser; a Red Wings sticker on a bedroom wall; and a black Michigan license plate
Mitchell, 51, has made four movies, and he’s set three of them — 2010’s “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” 2014’s “It Follows” and now “The End of Oak Street” — in Metro Detroit. Only 2018’s “Under the Silver Lake,” a Los Angeles-set mystery starring Andrew Garfield, takes place outside of the director’s native turf
“I have a strong personal connection to the area, and I often write stories that take place there,” Mitchell told The Detroit News in 2015, when talking about “It Follows.” “I’m aware there’s a sense of it’s in ‘The American Suburb’ and that’s how it’s seen, but for me, growing up there, it is specifically Metro Detroit.”
Mitchell grew up loving movies and was writing scripts and studying Hitchcock by junior high. In 1985, he attended the local premiere of the independent film “Stryker’s War” (which was later titled “Thou Shall Not Kill … Except”), on which his uncle had worked, and it signified to him that movies were a
He attended Wayne State University after high school, and then moved to Los Angeles, where he became a film editor. After shooting “Myth” for $30,000, he shot “It Follows” in Metro Detroit, filming at Clark’s Ice Cream & Yogurt in Berkley and the Clawson parks where he hung out when he was growing up
“The End of Oak Street” stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as parents of two children (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery play their kids) who find their world rocked when, due to a mysterious cosmic event, their suburb is suddenly thrust into a world of dinosaurs. The Platt family is forced to fend for their lives as angry dinos attack them and their neighbors and they try to find their way to safety
The film is set in 1982, and London and Atlanta stood in for Metro Detroit. In the credits, Mitchell dedicates the film to his father, Robert Allen Mitchell, who died in 2024
“The End of Oak Street” opens in theaters on Thursday
