The most star-studded film to spend significant time filming in Tucson at least 16 years, the coming-of-age drama “Goats” is filming in town. David Duchovny, Keri Russell, Vera Farmiga and Minnie Driver are in town until next week, filming at an undisclosed house.

“Goats”is a quirky Tucson-set tale of a friendship between a 14-year-old boy and his family’s 40-ish pool man, Goat Man, played by Duchovny. The boy is played by Graham Phillips.

The film is based on the 2001 book by former Tucsonan Mark Jude Poirier, who attended Green Fields Country Day School, then went on to graduate from  Georgetown, Stanford and the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.

He wrote “Goats” while living with longtime friends Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry while working at McMurtry’s bookstore in Archer City, Texas.

Poirier, who lives in Connecticut, penned the screenplay for the movie and is on set doing re-writes as needed.

The film was originally scheduled to be shot entirely in New Mexico, but Poirier and director Christopher Neil coaxed producers to shoot for two weeks in Tucson. The production arrived last week and is scheduled to film through Thursday.

The $3 million production is Tucsonan’s most significant filmmaking coup in some time, and the most Hollywood-style activity here since 2008, when the productions of “Transformers 2” and “Away We Go” both stopped by briefly.

Contact reporter Phil Villarreal at 573-4130 or pvillarreal@azstarnet.com