Eight movie stars who've acted in Daytona Beach area before Brad Pitt's scenes at speedway

News that Brad Pitt is shooting a film in the Daytona Beach area is a novelty. It's not common for stars so bright to make movies in Volusia County. But it's also not a first.

Here's a look at eight bonafide movie stars who have filmed in the area over the years.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman

Conceived by Tom Cruise after he was allowed to run a lap at Daytona International Speedway a few years earlier, "Days of Thunder" is arguably the most famous Daytona-centric movie (sorry/not sorry, "Dirty Grandpa").

The 1990 action-drama stars Cruise and Nicole Kidman − who met on the set, including shooting at the Speedway. Their marriage was one of the most celebrated of the 1990s but ended in 2001. In both its production and critical acclaim, "Days of Thunder" also had its ups and downs.

Infighting between the producers and director led to a three-month delay in the completion of filming, swelling its budget to $60 million from the original $35 million. While it has just a 38% Rotton Tomatoes critics' rating, it has a fan base, including Quentin Tarantino, who called it his favorite racing movie. Costars include Robert Duvall and Randy Quaid.

Fred Astaire

When he was 6, Fred Astaire made his vaudeville debut, in top hat and tails, dancing and performing comedy with his sister. Seventy-six years later, he shot his final film, "Ghost Story," partly in DeLand, at Stetson University. The 1981 horror-thriller also included other Old Hollywood legends Melvyn Howard and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., plus John Houseman. Astaire's storied partnership with Ginger Rogers in a string of 1930s musical classics raised his Hollywood status and he was among the inaugural Kennedy Center Honors class in 1978.

Adam Sandler

"The Waterboy," featuring Adam Sandler as Bobby Boucher, Jr., a mentally challenged, 31-year-old, bullied waterboy who becomes a linebacker. Football action scenes were shot at Spec Martin Stadium in DeLand. The Boucher family home was in DeBary. A St. Johns River fish camp was also part of the setting. For people of a certain age, perhaps an even bigger star plays the coach: Henry Winkler, while Kathy Bates has a role as Boucher's mother.

Charlize Theron

Perhaps the Daytona Beach area's most notorious criminal, Aileen Wuornos, became the unlikely role that won Charlize Theron her Best Actress Oscar in 2004. Theron transformed her world-class physical beauty into the monster-like prostitute who − enraged by sexual assaults from her past − began killing men and stealing their cars in 1989-1990. Wournos was executed in 2002, just a year before "Monster" was released. The film was shot across Central Florida, including scenes in Daytona Beach.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton was a 1997 nominee for Best Actress for "Marvin's Room," a drama that included a scene from New Smyrna Beach. In the sequence, a 20-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio talks with Keaton on the beach, then races a car down the hard-packed sand, skimming the water, laughing. Much of the film, which also starred Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro, was shot in other Florida locations, including Disney World, Kissimmee and Rockledge, during 1995.

At the time, Keaton was well into a career that earned her four Oscar nominations, not even counting her iconic work in the "Godfather" films. DiCaprio was already a star, having earned a 1994 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" but his next film after "Marvin's Room" was just a bit bigger − "Titanic."

Tim McGraw and (maybe) George Clooney

George Clooney starred in "Tomorrowland," a 2015 big-budget sci-fi adventure that included a scene shot on Canal Street. Clooney played Frank Walker, a jaded former boy-genius inventor who joins a science-curious teen on a mission. The "Tomorrowland" crew was in New Smyrna Beach, but none of the footage used in the film included Clooney.

So it's unclear whether the star of "The Perfect Storm" got to enjoy the decidedly more friendly waves of New Smyrna jetty. But co-stars Britt Robertson and Tim McGraw were part of the filming in downtown New Smyrna Beach, where Canal Street was closed for a 12-hour window one night in 2013.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Brad Pitt film to join other star-studded movies shot in Daytona area