PORTLAND (AP) – “Empire Falls” will make its premiere on HBO over Memorial Day weekend, HBO announced this week.

The movie, which was shot in 2003 in Waterville, Skowhegan and other Maine towns, is based on Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a Maine mill town down on its luck. The movie’s cast includes stars such as Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris and Helen Hunt.

Part one of the film will show on May 28 from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., with part two airing on May 29 from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. After its premiere, the film will be shown again several times in May and June on HBO and HBO2.

Russo, who has seen the finished film, said he’s very pleased with how it came out – and he thinks Mainers will be, too.

“The performances are stunning,” said Russo, who lives in Camden. “It’s a beautiful film and central Maine comes off looking really good. I think people will be really pleased with the way their lives and their towns come across.”

HBO has agreed to let two cable systems in central Maine, where most of the film was shot, show the premiere to its basic cable subscribers at no charge. Adelphia and Bee Line Cable will both show the film to their subscribers, said Suzanne Pinto, a publicist for the film with HBO.

Bee Line has 9,000 subscribers in and around Skowhegan.

Adelphia plans to make the movie available to about 155,000 subscribers in an area that stretches from Windham through central Maine to north of Bangor, said Adelphia spokeswoman Kathy Hounsell.

More than 2,600 local people were used as extras in the movie, including about 650 who were used for a football game scene at Skowhegan Area High School. State officials estimated that the movie’s economic impact could have been as high as $250,000 a day.