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MCU’s Captain America, Anthony Mackie, talks about filming “Elevation” in Colorado, Coach Prime and more

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MCU’s Captain America, Anthony Mackie, talks about filming “Elevation” in Colorado, Coach Prime and more


Anthony Mackie wants to get something off his chest before answering any questions.

“That Meow (Wolf Denver) museum is the craziest (stuff) I’ve ever seen in my life,” said the 46-year-old actor, unprompted, referring to the surreal installation just west of downtown.

That’s saying something, given Mackie’s career as an action hero and low-key heartthrob. As a veteran of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he’s finally making his film debut as the new Captain America in Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World” on Feb. 14, 2025 — following the groundwork laid by his 2021 Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

More recently, Mackie’s been battling monsters in the post-apocalyptic thriller “Elevation,” which was shot mostly in Boulder and Golden and is in theaters now. He plays Will, a father desperate to find medical supplies for his ailing son. That forces him to descend the 8,000-foot-and-higher safety zone of the Rocky Mountains, and into the lower-elevation danger zone where vicious monsters roam free.

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That danger zone? Boulder — which is rendered as an empty town just starting to be reclaimed by nature, following the disaster that violently erased most of the human race. The film co-stars Morena Baccarin (in arguably one of her best roles) as disillusioned scientist Nina, and Maddie Hasson as salty young traveler Katie. Together, they navigate abandoned tunnels, an empty hospital and other spooky locales while taking center-frame in gorgeous drone shots of Colorado’s piney expanses.

“I was surprised at the level of chill of everybody in Boulder. Maybe they were all high? But a lot of them weren’t,” Mackie said. “Except for that one old lady in the gym. You know who you are, and you’re mean.”

Mackie likes to do superset workouts, he said, so he would do a heavy press with a medium fly, for example, without taking breaks between machines. Mackie’s elderly nemesis, who stared him down throughout his workouts, copied everything he did.

“So I’m like, ‘Fine, I’m just going to do some rows and pull-ups.’ And she comes around and is like, ‘You can’t even do a pull-up!’ ” he said with a laugh. “And I’d have my headphones in, and she’d be like, ‘Excuse me, no phone in the gym.’ I was about ready to fly my sister in to fight this girl and go Liam Neeson on her.”

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He jests, but he took his promo duties for “Elevation” seriously. Mackie and “Elevation” director George Nolfi (“The Adjustment Bureau,” “Spectral”) visited the Denver Film Festival on Nov. 4 to screen and talk about the movie. Mackie even made it up to visit with buddy Deion Sanders in Boulder, hosting a screening for Coach Prime, the University of Colorado Boulder football team, and Super Bowl champ Warren Sapp — as well as a separate Boulder cast-and-crew screening, followed by the Denver Film Fest visit. Phew.

From left: Morena Baccarin, Maddie Hasson, and Anthony Mackie try to navigate the wilderness in the Colorado-filmed “Elevation,” which played the Denver Film Festival on Nov. 4, with Mackie and director George Nolfi in attendance. (Scott Garfield, provided by Denver Film)

“I did go to a lot of University of Colorado football games while we were shooting,” Mackie said. “But (Sanders) had told me Boulder was like the Atlanta of the West Coast. I must have missed it by two months! When I was in Boulder I was the only Black dude there. Kiss my (butt), Deion Sanders.”

Mackie’s first few weeks of filming in Colorado in late 2022 were challenging in a different way. As a New Orleans resident, he went from sea level to elevations of up to 11,000 feet, he said. He and his stunt man would jog together every day, and go hiking every third day in the Flatirons.

“It was painful coming back from Colorado to New Orleans because the air is so heavy and I was so opened up,” he said. “I felt like I was taking in so much water with my breathing.”

He loved Colorado, but doesn’t miss Boulder much, dubbing it an isolating place that’s “myopic” in its approach to communal dwelling and living in general. The isolation helped with his performance in “Elevation,” he said, since his character Will goes through the same feelings.

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“I’ll tell you what I learned in Colorado,” Mackie said. “I thought there would be good fishing, beautiful countryside, all of that. And I was right. The fly fishing was amazing, I got a lot of brookies (trout), but I didn’t go hunting, which I was mad about. Next time I’m coming back hard.”



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Colorado residents face earliest water restrictions ever — a harbinger of worse to come

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Colorado residents face earliest water restrictions ever — a harbinger of worse to come


As a result of a snow drought and a heat wave that have both set records, some Colorado residents face the earliest restrictions on their water use ever imposed.

Denver Water announced Wednesday that it is seeking a 20% cut in water use, asking people to turn off automatic watering systems until mid-May and restricting the watering of trees and shrubs to twice a week.

“The situation is quite serious,” said Todd Hartman, a spokesperson for the utility. “We’re in such a dire situation that we could be coming back to the public in two or three months and saying you’re limited to one day a week.”

It is the earliest in the year that Denver Water has ever issued a restriction, Hartman said.

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Colorado’s snowpack peaked at extremely low levels on March 12 — nearly a month earlier than usual — then cratered during the recent heat wave that cooked nearly every state in the West.

“We already had the lowest snowpack we’ve seen since at least 1981, and now, with the heat wave conditions, we’ve already lost about 40% of the statewide snowpack” since the March 12 peak, said Peter Goble, Colorado’s assistant state climatologist. “Conditions are looking more like late April or early May.”

The water restrictions are a harbinger of what’s to come in many Western states as officials try to manage widespread drought concerns. Nearly every snow basin in the Mountain West had one of its warmest winters on record and is well behind normal when it comes to water supply, according to the U.S. drought monitor. The dwindling snowpack is likely to raise the risk of severe wildfires, hamper electricity generation at hydropower dams and force water restrictions for farmers.

Hartman said nearly every community east of the Rockies, along Colorado’s front range, is in much the same boat as Denver.

City Council members in Aurora are considering similar water restrictions; reservoirs there stand at about 58%, according to the city’s website. In the town of Erie, officials declared a water shortage emergency on March 20 after they observed a massive spike in consumption.

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Gabi Rae, a spokesperson for the town, said Erie was perilously close to having taps run dry because so many residents had started watering their lawns early amid the unseasonable heat.

“We were a day away from running out of water. That’s why it was such an emergency,” she said.

Erie officials demanded that residents stop using irrigation systems altogether.

Goble said this month’s heat wave has set records in every corner of Colorado, sometimes by double digits.

“I can’t remember seeing a single heat wave that broke this many records, and seeing it across such a large portion of the country is certainly eye-popping,” he said, adding: “I’m located in Fort Collins, and we got up to 91 last Saturday. The previous record for March was 81, so we smashed that record. And it wasn’t just one day, either.”

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Skiers at Breckenridge Ski Resort as temperatures reached into the 50s this month. Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images

Denver Water, which serves about 1.5 million residents in the city and its surrounding suburbs, gets about half of its water from the Upper Colorado River Basin and the South Platte River Basin. The latter’s snowpack was at about 42% of normal Tuesday, the utility reported. The Upper Colorado River Watershed was at 55%.

Systemwide, Denver Water’s reservoirs are about 80% full, which is only about 5 percentage points lower than in a typical year.

“That sounds pretty good,” Hartman said. “Except that what we’re not going to be able to rely on is that rush of water that will bring those reservoirs back up, because the snowpack is so low.”

In other words, the snowpack — a natural water reservoir — is mostly tapped already and won’t replenish reservoirs later this spring and into summer, when runoff usually peaks.

In Erie, city workers plan to aggressively police water use until sometime next week using smart meters that monitor residential usage. Rae said the city is also sending utility workers to patrol neighborhoods and look for sprinklers that are turned on.

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“People have been kind of annoyed with how aggressive we were, and I don’t necessarily think they understand the ramifications if we weren’t,” Rae said. “It is an actual serious emergency situation. We were so close to reaching empty, there would literally be no water coming out of the taps — hospitals, schools, fire hydrants, your home would have no water.”

Although the limits on outdoor watering will be lifted soon, Rae expects more restrictions later this spring and summer.



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Suddenly hazy skies in Denver prompt some residents concerned about wildfire smoke to call 911

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Suddenly hazy skies in Denver prompt some residents concerned about wildfire smoke to call 911



Some people who live in the Denver metro area on Thursday afternoon were making calls to 911 after skies became noticeably hazy and winds kicked up. It was due to smoke from wildfires in Nebraska moving into Colorado. A cold front also was moving through the Front Range, and there is dust in the air.

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The poor air conditions led to reduced visibility downtown after 3 p.m. Several of CBS Colorado’s City Cams showed dust or smoke in the air.

Temperatures were expected to drop by as much as 20 to 30 degrees with the cold front.  

The suddenly dusty skies prompted at least one fire agency to put out a plea to residents to please only call 911 “if you see flames.” That warning was put out by South Metro Fire Rescue, which shared a photo on X of an office building with haze visible outside.

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South Metro Fire


South Metro Fire Rescue said in their post that the smoke is from Colorado’s neighbor to the east. They called it a “significant haze” in the air.

Earlier this month, the Morrill Fire and the Cottonwood Fire burned a significant amount of Nebraska grassland and ranchland. They have mostly been contained by firefighters. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said those two fires combined with several others have burned approximately 800,000 acres of land. On Thursday, Pillen announced that he is signing several executive actions intended to ease the burden caused by the fires.  

There were no wildfires burning in the Denver metro area on Thursday afternoon.

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Colorado homicide suspect wanted in fentanyl-related death arrested in Colombia

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Colorado homicide suspect wanted in fentanyl-related death arrested in Colombia


ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) – A homicide suspect based out of Colorado, wanted in a fentanyl-related death, is back in the state after being captured in Colombia.

The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) said 33-year-old Max Arsenault had been on the run since January 17.

Deputies said this stemmed from an incident in May 2023, where deputies responded to a call for a man named Nicholas Dorotik, who was found unresponsive.

ACSO said the cause of death was a mixed drug overdose involving meth and fentanyl, having about three times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his system.

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One year later, Arsenault was arrested. He was scheduled for trial in January 2026 when deputies said he fled the country while on bond three days before the trial was set to start.

He was caught in Medellin, Colombia, on March 4, following a two-month international investigation. He has since been extradited back to Denver, where he is facing charges and awaiting trial.



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