The Dark Knight Rises won’t be getting any cash back for its upcoming Pittsburgh shoot through the state incentive scheme. Pittsburgh will be doubling for Gotham City but productions must spend at least 60% of their total budget in the city to qualify for the incentive.
The long-term success of Massachusetts’ screen industry could get a boost from plans to develop a state-of-the-art studio facility in the north-east part of the state. MJM Development, based in Andover, plans to build over an area of nearly 30 acres, with a phased development period of ten years.
The Sunset Strip of the 1980s has been recreated in Miami for the filming of Tom Cruise’s Rock of Ages. It’s another snubbing for Los Angeles, with the city apparently unable to match Miami’s incentive scheme or flexibility when it came to street closures and set dressings.
A big-budget version of Paradise Lost is coming to Fox Studios in Sydney and could rejuvenate Australia’s global appeal. Major international projects have been scarce in the country recently, with local producers largely blaming the Aussie dollar, so this is terrific news for the national industry.
When you're the Executive Producer on films with budgets that routinely hover around the USD150 million mark, you expect to get a lot of messages. For the first 20 minutes I spend with Kevin de la Noy on a wet Friday afternoon in west London, he gets a phone call every 40 seconds.
A delegation of Bollywood producers is visiting Israel to scout filming locations, meet industry personnel and attend the Jerusalem International Film Festival (JIFF). They were invited by the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange, designed to improve ties between Israel and India.
The filming incentive in Washington State has been ended after local politicians decided the 30% cash rebate programme wasn’t having a big enough economic impact. More than 20 projects received collective incentives worth USD5.4 million through the course of 2010, with nearly USD20 million being channelled into the economy.
December 2011 will see the launch of a 20% filming tax rebate in Croatia if the Croatian Audiovisual Centre has its way. If the launch goes ahead as planned, competition in Eastern Europe will reach new levels, with Croatia already establishing itself as a cheaper double for countries like Italy.