Richard Gere walks by crew members during the making of his movie, Hachiko: A Dog’s Story, outside the train station in Woonsocket yesterday as onlookers shrieked "There he is!"

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

WOONSOCKET — Richard Gere is scheduled to wrap up his filming today for Hachiko: A Dog’s Story at the downtown railway station where the movie has been shooting for two weeks.

But except for scenes that were filmed outdoors with Gere and the Akita dog named Chico, who has the title role of his faithful companion in the film, sightings of the movie star have been rare and brief.

Yesterday, Gere barred the media from inside the gingerbread-style station. Several people standing 100 feet away on a street corner hoping for a look at Gere had to make do with the sight of him jumping out of an SUV and into the station. It happened so quickly that most missed him.

Producer Bill Johnson, who has been back and forth between Rhode Island and Hollywood during the filming for his Inferno production company, said that despite some setbacks because of the fickle Ocean State weather, Hachiko is “a little bit behind schedule, but not too bad.”

Johnson recalled that one night they had planned to film an outdoor scene that was supposed to be very windy. The production crew had big fans ready to create the wind. But the real wind forced them to rethink things. “It was so windy that we had to shut things down,” he said.

There is snow in the movie, but the real snow that has fallen during their stay in Rhode Island (filming started the third week of January) hasn’t been much help. “So we have to make our own snow for continuity,” Johnson explained. “It’s easier to make snow than to remove snow.”

Johnson, a lanky man with an easy smile and a two-day beard, said that earlier yesterday they had shot scenes on the station platform with a train borrowed from the Providence & Worcester Railroad. “It was the first day we had the train and the dog together.”

Hachiko: A Dog’s Story is based on a famous Japanese dog who would see his master, a college professor, off from home on his way to the railway station as the man left for his university job. In the afternoon, the dog would return to the station to meet the professor’s train. After the professor died, the dog continued to return to wait for him at the station every afternoon. It was a story that touched the hearts of the Japanese who turned the dog into a national hero and erected a statue to him that still stands outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo.

The American film is loosely based on that story, which had been turned into a successful Japanese movie several years ago. In this version, Gere’s character is a music professor named Parker who lives in the suburban town of Bedridge. A large “Bedridge” sign now adorns the Woonsocket station. In real life, however, Parker’s house is on High Street in Bristol, while the station he walks toward to catch his train is some 30 miles away.

Next Monday and Tuesday the movie crew is scheduled to move to the University of Rhode Island campus in Kingston to shoot scenes with Parker teaching his class.

Johnson called making Hachiko in Rhode Island “a good experience.” So much so that he said his company is putting together a film fund to finance “18 movies that will be made over a three-year period in Rhode Island,” possibly beginning as early as later this year.

For the moment, however, there’s Hachiko, which is scheduled to complete production on its winter scenes at the end of the first week of March. But Johnson said that the movie crew will be back at the end of June to shoot scenes that are set in the spring.

mjanuson@projo.com