More "Bill" News!
Hollywood,
Jessica Alba Come To St. Louis To Shoot
Movie
created: 6/19/2006 6:38:42 PM
updated: 6/20/2006 11:45:31 AM
By Kelly Jackson
(KSDK) -
Film crews from Hollywood are in town this week shooting a
new movie.
St. Louis, however, wasn't the first location choice. Thanks to state tax credits, many filmmakers are bringing productions to Missouri.
Putting money back in their pockets and millions more into the local economy.
The movie is called "Bill." It's a comedy starring Jessica Alba.
Monday, they were on location at the St. Louis Galleria.
Minneapolis was actually the first choice, but St. Louis won out. "When we were looking around and we knew that Missouri had a great tax credit program that if we could find a city in Missouri that worked well that that would be a real advantage for us," says Matthew Rowland, one of the film's producers.
You could say Missouri was a trailblazer for
film production tax credits.
"We were well ahead of the curve. We started in 1999. We had a million dollars in tax credits we could offer, and most states didn't jump in until about 3 years ago," says Jerry Jones, Director of the Missouri Film Commission.
The cap is one million dollars annually per project shot in Missouri.
So if a company spends a million, they get up to 50 percent of that back.
"It behooves you not to shoot somewhere else because you don't get any tax credits for it. If you shoot in Missouri, use Missouri people, buy Missouri things, rent Missouri equipment, you'll get reimbursed for it," says Jones.
So filmmakers have been shooting all around Missouri including places like St. Charles, Kansas City, and Cape Girardeau.
In 2003, the film "The Game of Their Lives" was shot in St. Louis.
"They spent $17.9 million in St. Louis while they were shooting that. We did an economic impact study on that and the study concluded that it had an economic impact in St. Louis of about $55 million. All for a $500,000 tax credit," says Jones.
There is a downside.
Missouri's annual cap is $1.5 million for the entire program.
"We could've used a lot more money. It would've been a much better program for us if the money in the program were higher," says Rowland.
Jones says he is trying to get the annual cap of $1.5 million raised to $10.5 million.
While the movie "Bill" will benefit from the tax credits, Jones says because of the cap, he estimates $40-million dollars worth of production will be lost because no tax credits are left.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_articl...?storyid=98892
Hope she gets her curvy-ness back.
