Build It With Tax Incentives, and Hollywood Will Come (Hollywood moving due to taxes)

[WriteDown]

Source: WSJ

DES MOINES, Iowa -- All summer long, this sober Midwest city rubbed shoulders with actors such as Forest Whitaker, Adrien Brody and Elisabeth Shue. No fewer than four Hollywood productions were shooting in town.

"It was very surreal," says Michael Braun, a 25-year-old bartender at the Continental, a restaurant near the state capitol. He recalls watching Nick Stahl in the HBO series "Carnivale" one day before work and then serving the actor dinner at the bar that night. "You don't expect that in Iowa," Mr. Braun says.

Now, Des Moines, population 200,000, is dealing with a nasty hangover. A lavish tax-incentive program that brought Hollywood to its doorstep has come to a halt amid allegations of faulty oversight, poor record-keeping and potentially criminal abuse.

One director bought himself a $61,000 Range Rover and a feather bed, as well as an iPod for his 15-year-old son. Another picked up a new Mercedes-Benz for $67,000. All the purchases were made with the help of a 50% tax credit, courtesy of the good people of Iowa.

Iowa's small but growing film industry is now in a state of suspended animation. Gov. Chet Culver temporarily halted the tax credits. The state film program's director was fired, and his bosses at the Iowa Department of Economic Development resigned. The state attorney general has launched a criminal investigation.

At least a dozen Hollywood projects that were to shoot in coming months are taking the action to other states, diverting millions of dollars from Iowa's economy. A half-built pirate ship sits in a city mall turned soundstage for a fantasy film called "Blackbeard" that may never be made. Many young Iowans who thought they had found a promising homegrown industry are considering leaving the state...

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125590995233693277.html?mod=igoogle_wsj_gadgv1&

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Unbridled greed.

[DBoon]

1. corruption in the film industry?

I am shocked, I tell you shocked.

[tomm2thumbs]

2. but the Range Rover was a prop! oh well, props to their greed

Hopefully they'll get them on some technicality.

[David Zephyr]

3. Yawn. This story has been going on for fifty years. Hollywood will always be Hollywood.

God, these stories get old after one's heard them decade after decade. Hollywood productions do move out of state and out of the country and have done so for eons. That isn't news. And neither is the false hope that other states and towns fall into when their fair locales are chosen from time to time: they will be the "new Hollywood".

The Wall Street Journal, the enemy of unions and the Left, recycles this shit about twice a decade. First, they'll find examples of off-site production and work it into their story with some colored "statistics" with the over-reaching message: Hollywood is dying.

Fox, NINO (news in name only), is always having their sock puppets (Hannity, O'Reilly, and the rest of the trolls) have segments on the "death of Hollywood". Last year, Fox wrote off Hollywood altogether prognosticating its demise and salivating over the fantasy tombstone they soon hoped to see.

The motion picture industry, the recording industry and the television industry will be rooted here in Los Angeles as it always has been.

[WriteDown]

4. Kind of like the car industry will ALWAYS be in Detroit.

:eyes:

[David Zephyr]

5. Bad analogy.

On too many levels.

Hollywood is thriving. It's diverse. There is not a "Big Three" here. Nor will there ever be. Hollywood is anti-structure. It is free-form. It is a public dream.

Hollywood is more than a single industry: it is motion pictures, animation, entertainment, television, sound recording.

It's not even a real "place". It's a metaphor for the "industry" in Los Angeles that has little do do with that small district in the city.

Until some other "place" can provide entertainers, directors, musicians, writers, studio heads and, yes, "movie stars" with adjacencies like Beverly Hills, Malibu, Bel-Air and Montecito and with a year-round climate that is one of the very best on the planet, along with all the beauty of beaches, mountains and deserts all within a radius of 100 miles, there will always be a Hollywood right here in Los Angeles.

Sometimes analogies work. Sometimes they don't.

By the way, did you know that so many of the cars on the road are designed right here in California? Yep. That includes Ford, General Motors, Toyota and more. You might be surprised to learn how many trend setting cars were designed right here. Such a creative community.

It's the sexiest place on the planet.

Gore Vidal said there are two truly great cities: Rome, which represents the past and Los Angeles, which is the future.

And the future resides smack dab in the heart of our mythical Hollywood.

[WriteDown]

6. You've got to be kidding?

LA is nice, but plastic. If you want a real city then come to NYC. :)

[David Zephyr]

7. Oh, so it's NYC.

Well, since I love NYC, I will go easy on you. And we'll never steal your theater from you. We have to leave something there. ;-)

[No Elephants]

13. Not to worry. Last I heard, Write Down left NY for Texas many years ago.

[WriteDown]

14. Many years?

I guess 5 can be called that. Like I said, have to go where you can work. Have a nice house down here though and a bit of land. Sure beats my old living quarters in NY, but can't get any good Chinese food.

[No Elephants]

11. What do you mean "come to NYC?" Did you move back there from Texas?

[WriteDown]

12. NYC is always home. nt

[David Zephyr]

17. If NYC is your home, you should go back.

I'd live in a dilapidated single wide trailer in the desert here in California before I'd live anywhere else on the earth. My will stipulates my ashes must be scattered in California.

For better or worse, in sickness or in death, this is my home.

If NYC is your home, you should be there. And if it is truly your home, you will return.

[WriteDown]

19. I will probably end up back there....

maybe to the reservation one day. I don't mind wandering a bit though. I have some relatives who won't even vacation out of the state. I don't want to be like that.

[David Zephyr]

18. I didn't know that.

.

[Romulox]

15. Maybe it's just me, but I've almost completely tuned out of what Hollywood is producing these days.

Surely it is just a trickle at this point, but my guess is that LA's days at the entertainment epicenter are numbered.

[David Zephyr]

16. Keep your guess just a guess, don't bet on it.

Hollywood is thriving more than ever now.

[Romulox]

21. Actually, the video game industry surpassed Hollywood YEARS ago...

tick tock! :hi:

[PM Martin]

8. Good to hear this.

Hollywood is liberal on popular social issues only.
When it comes to business they are just as greedy as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

Film tax credits should be done away with. It is tiring when they shut down streets/businesses so that they can film.

Hollywood is easy money for the big 'actors' and 'producers'.
:puke:

[depakid]

9. Hey now- Canada gets a lot of production work!

[No Elephants]

10. I hope Governor Patrick sees this. Massachusetts has attracted so many films that I fear

they are giving away what was left of the state after Romney. Last I heard, they were building a movie studio in Plymouth. Yep, the home of Plymouth Rock.

[Trillo]

20. Are there any businesses that don't need financial incentives?

The more incentives given to business, the less businesses there are that don't need them.