TIFTON — Drivers in downtown Tifton last Saturday might have wondered if they made a major wrong turn … or 12. Flying above City Hall was the Canadian flag.

No cause for alarm was needed, however. It was all in the script.

“Bandit,” an upcoming film starring Mel Gibson, Josh Duhamel and Elisha Cuthbert, has been rolling cameras in Tifton. Filming was to wrap earlier this week. Tifton has been one of a handful of South Georgia cities serving as film locations, with Thomasville, Moultrie and Valdosta being stops earlier in the month.

The story is based on the career of Gilbert Galvan, a prolific bank robber initially caught by Ontario authorities in 1987. The 59-bank spree took him across Canada, having started after Galvan escaped from an American prison and fled to north of the border. Galvan was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Canada.

Besides the stars, “Bandit” brought writer and executive producer Kraig Wenman to Tifton. A British Columbia native, Wenman took time to discuss the film and his inspirations in a chat at Don Julio’s Mexican Restaurant.

Wenman had not seen much of Georgia before he began filming in it. He likes the Peach State and he likes Tifton. “It has a down home feel,” he said.

South Georgia is a long way from Canada, but it works for “Bandit.” Thomasville has areas that resemble Vancouver.

As Galvan was active in the 1980s, Wenman needed places that are accurate to the period. South Georgia fit the bill. It also helped, he said, that Tifton had some big features he needed.

“There are banks everywhere,” Wenman said. Plus, the banks are near one another. Even with the abundance of financial institutions downtown, they cannot match Galvan’s numbers and Wenman had to get creative. Some banks have had to serve as several different banks.

A casting call for Tifton asked for extras for background scenes and also for 1980s vehicles. Many lined Main Street during filming. City Hall was another filming site, being turned into a hotel. That fits its background, as City Hall began life as the Myon Hotel.

“Everything starts and ends in Tifton,” he said. Wenman estimates that “Bandit” has 150 different locations. “It was all about our production design.” Wenman credits Burns Burns for his work on the sets. “He’s the guy who saved the whole thing. He made it look like the ‘80s and he can take one location and make it look like 10.”

Wenman said the wardrobe department has done an excellent job of capturing the era.

The film has a number of big names. Wenman credited his Quebecois producer for getting Cuthbert, Duhamel, Gibson and Nestor Carbonell. “He just knows people,” Wenman said.

Wenman is no stranger to the crime genre. In recent years, he has written a number of television movies for The Hallmark Channel.

He had long been aware of Galvan’s story. He read and bought the rights to Ed Arnold’s and Robert Knuckle’s book on the spree, “The Flying Bandit: Bringing Down Canada’s Most Daring Armed Robber.” He’s formed his own relationship with Galvan, to the extent that Galvan himself appears in the background of a few scenes. “He’s the world’s most charming guy,” Wenman said.

He’s drawn to Galvan’s charm and Wenman pointed out that the robberies were not violent. Galvan’s even remained friends with the Ontario detective who arrested him in 1987.

“Bandit” has a distributor and, once production is completed, will be shown on about 100 movie theater screens in 2022. From there, it will likely be sold to an on-demand service.

Wenman’s own background has served him well for the film. He has a love of comedy and an interest in true crime. He talked of his appreciation for the late Leslie Nielsen, star of “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun” and a fellow Canadian, and the Headline News series, “Forensic Files.”

That combination together worked for “Bandit.”

“It’s not super serious,” Wenman said. “It’s like ‘Catch Me If You Can,’ with a couple of dark, dramatic moments. It’s supposed to be fun.”