BATON ROUGE - A feature film produced by Walt Disney Studios will begin filming shortly in the capital area.

The film, titled "Crater", will debut on Disney+ and has an estimated budget of about $40 million. A statement from Celtic Studios, where the movie is slated to film, said the project is expected to employ hundreds of Louisiana residents, with production plans calling for 325 crew members and 400 extras.

"After going without work for a year or a year plus, a lot of the crew has been sitting and waiting especially in the Baton Rouge base we haven't had a lot of projects come back. So I think it's exciting for the crew to get back to doing what they love to do," said Aaron Bayham, the Director of Studio Operations at Celtic.

The movie, described as a "futuristic teen adventure," will be directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, known for his work on the Netflix series "13 Reasons Why." It will star McKenna Grace, Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Billy Barratt, Orson Hong and Thomas Boyce.

The plot surrounds a boy growing up on a lunar colony who takes a trip to explore a mysterious crater with his four best friends. Bayham says that means a lot of green screen and visual affects will be involved.

"You're going to be replacing some of the backgrounds or the surface as you can imagine creating some sort of lunar surface," said Bayham.

The film is among the first to film in Louisiana after the coronavirus pandemic shut down productions nationwide last year. More than a dozen film and TV projects are in production or pre-production across the state at this time.

Portions of the production will also be filmed on location in other parts of the capital region.