In Monte Carlo these days, it takes very little to feel as though you have arrived in the wrong place at the right time. A sign, a car parked where it normally shouldn’t be, a street suddenly closed to traffic. And then, above all, those cars. They are not the single-seaters we are used to seeing racing around the modern circuit: their shapes, proportions and colors belong to another era, taking us back more than sixty years.

For a few days, the Principality has decided to play itself; but in 1962. This is where Bradley Cooper is currently shooting the new film connected to the Ocean’s Eleven franchise, known for now by its working title, Sandcastles.

Filming in Monaco began on Monday, August 24. The production has transformed Port Hercule and several sections of the city circuit into a film set designed to recreate the atmosphere of the Monaco Grand Prix in the early 1960s.

The most fascinating thing about watching Monte Carlo in these days is the strange collision between what we know and what the production wants us to forget. Monaco is still Monaco: the harbor, the yachts, the impossible corners of the circuit, the Mediterranean just a few steps away. But everything else has been pushed back in time. Streets are being closed in rotation, access routes altered, while the urban landscape becomes one enormous movie set. The areas involved include Port Hercule, Avenue d’Ostende and Larvotto, with some of the most spectacular sequences connected to the legendary racing circuit itself.

Around the cameras, extras move through the streets in period costumes and curious onlookers point out that one of the flags has its colors reversed, allowing the production to correct the mistake before post-production and saving them from accidentally showing a Polish flag instead of Monaco’s. Modern details have to disappear from the frame, while everything belonging to the past must look completely natural.

It is a Monaco built for cinema, but recreated with such attention to the atmosphere of a 1960s Grand Prix that the line between reconstruction and reality almost disappears.

And then there is Cooper. Bradley Cooper is not here simply as an actor. He is also directing the film. Images from the set show him working on shots, conferring with the crew and closely overseeing the vintage automobiles being used for the racing sequences. The real twist, however, is not simply the transformation of Monte Carlo. It is the story Cooper is telling. The film takes place before the events audiences already know and puts Danny Ocean’s parents at the center of the story. It is a prequel in the most traditional sense: rather than following another adventure of Danny’s familiar crew, it looks back to the origins of the particular combination of talent, elegance and criminal ingenuity associated with the character.

At the heart of the story is the Monaco Grand Prix. A major international event, a concentration of money, celebrities and extraordinary automobiles and, naturally, the perfect setting for a heist. Margot Robbie and Cooper play Danny Ocean’s parents, while the cast also includes Monica Barbaro, Wagner Moura, Josh Gad, George MacKay, Vicky Krieps and Omar Sy.

If Cooper is the male face of the Monaco shoot, Robbie represents the other half of the operation. Her presence fits perfectly with the film’s visual direction. During earlier filming in Paris, the actress was photographed in looks inspired by early-1960s fashion: elegant silhouettes, retro accessories and an aesthetic that deliberately evokes the cinematic glamour of the period.

In Monaco, that visual language finds its natural setting. Because the Principality, more than many other European locations, does not need to be reinvented to look like a movie location: it already does. Remove a few contemporary elements, bring back the cars of the era and fill the streets with people dressed as they would have been six decades ago, and the transformation is almost instantaneous.

There is also a personal gamble behind the project. Cooper is placing himself simultaneously in front of and behind the camera. Following A Star Is Born and Maestro, he returns to directing with a film belonging to an already iconic cinematic universe; one that will inevitably be compared with Steven Soderbergh’s trilogy and George Clooney’s Danny Ocean. But the strategy here appears to be different: rather than simply recreating the familiar Ocean formula, the film goes back to its roots.

The theatrical release is currently scheduled for June 25, 2027.

Watching the set, the most intriguing impression is that the film is not simply using Monte Carlo as a backdrop. It is turning the Principality into a character. Port Hercule is no longer simply the harbor we know. It becomes the harbor of a Monaco where the Grand Prix is still an event capable of bringing together aristocracy, racing, celebrities and immense wealth. The streets are no longer just streets: they are the circuit. The cars are not merely props: they are part of the story. And contemporary traffic, forced to stop to make room for the production, becomes an almost involuntary metaphor.

For a few days, Monaco has to stop its present in order to let Hollywood bring its past back to life. It is a scene perfectly suited to an Ocean’s film: everything has to look effortless, elegant and impeccably organized. Even when hundreds of people are working behind the scenes.

As the sun goes down over the harbor and the cameras keep rolling, there is a sense that Cooper has chosen the most natural possible setting for this story. Not Las Vegas. Not Los Angeles. Not a studio recreation. Monte Carlo. The place where, at least on the big screen, a heist can begin with a motor race, unfold among yachts and casinos, and be over long before anyone realizes that something has gone wrong.

To find out how it ends, however, we will have to wait until June 2027. For now, here on the set, the heist is still being prepared.