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Leto · 05-24-2011, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Goin' Down the Road

or as most of us remember it...

Goin' Down the Road - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know the first pic, is the second from a remake of Goin Down the Road? I think I see the Sam The Record Man sign in the background... but the guys are looking older...

I thought of just pm'ing you on some recent local film news, but then thought why not let our erstwhile American friend a window in on the goings on?

So this was in the Toronto Star on the weekend and given your interest:

Hollywood North ...the sequel - Entertainment - Toronto.com

Hollywood North ...the sequel

By Bruce DeMara
Entertainment Reporter
May 20, 2011

At the moment, Toronto's hopes of regaining its status as the pinnacle of Hollywood North are resting on the shoulders of an Irish actor and a Mexican director.

All seven sound stages at the mammoth Pinewood Studios Toronto, 4.5 hectares on the city's waterfront, will soon be fully occupied as production begins this month on Total Recall, starring Irish actor Colin Farrell. That includes the 46,000-square-foot “mega” stage, the largest in North America.

The $200 million film clearly represents a milestone. It is both the largest budget film in the city's history and the first “tent-pole” blockbuster ever produced here.

Within days of its departure at the end of the summer, the Star has learned that a second mega-budget feature will take its place: Pacific Rim, directed by Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II), a high-tech sci-fi movie about an alien invasion of Earth.

Eight years after SARS temporarily branded Toronto a leper zone and sent the industry into a tailspin, there is optimism that the dark days are past and the city will reclaim its position as Canada's centre of film and TV production in 2011 over perennial rival Vancouver.

“We've got the chops to do it in Toronto and we're going to have a chance to show our stuff this year. We'll be able to show the international world what Toronto's capable of,” said Edith Myers, managing director of Pinewood Studios Toronto.

The film industry in Toronto was riding high in March 2003 when the musical Chicago — produced here a year earlier, much to the chagrin of the real Chicago — won Best Picture at the Oscars. At the same time, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) hit, spurring a four-month crisis that sent the international film and TV community elsewhere.

“In 2003, for many genres, if you were going to go to Canada, we were it. And what we saw with SARS was a shift. A lot of our business went to Vancouver and some of that business just did not come back,” said Toronto film commissioner Peter Finestone.

In the same period, the competition for film and TV production grew increasingly fierce on a North American and global scale. Canada had been able to grab a piece of Hollywood's multi-billion dollar industry because of a cheap Canadian dollar: as low as 63 cents (U.S.) in 2002. Suddenly it was going head to head with U.S. states and overseas locales like Prague and Budapest, which were anxious to attract “green” creative industry jobs with lucrative new tax credits.

At present, 43 U.S. states offer some kind of tax credit program to attract production. The bandwagon trend began in the mid-2000s and gained such steam that it forced California, under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to enact its own tax incentives in 2009 to stem the hemorrhaging in its industry.

But in recent years, the tide has turned as many U.S. states, including New Mexico and Michigan, had to slash spending to cope with massive budget shortfalls. The timing could not be better for Toronto and the Canadian industry at a time when the loonie is soaring above par against the U.S. dollar.

Despite New Mexico's recent success in capturing major film and TV production, Governor Susana Martinez recently described tax credits as “a giveaway the state can no longer afford” and the state adopted a $50 million annual cap on payouts.

Michigan, which has one of the most generous tax-credit programs in the U.S., is poised to replace its credits with a $25 million culture fund if Governor Rick Snyder, who assumed office in January, gets his way.

That's good news for Ontario, where the position of the McGuinty government has been to go the other way. Two years ago, the province revised its tax-credit program to match Quebec's on a 35 per cent rebate on labour costs for domestic production. More importantly, it expanded its production service tax credit of 25 per cent, for foreign and domestic projects, to include all spending in Ontario, including labour, material, studio space rental, etc.

The Ontario government has also signalled there will be no spending caps and no end date for the program.

“The thing that Ontario has always had going for it in terms of tax credits is the stability,” said Karen Thorne-Stone, president and CEO of the Ontario Media Development Corp., which oversees the tax-credit program. “So we don't have a sunset date. In fact, the Ontario government made a conscious decision a couple of years ago to remove sunset dates to give some real comfort to the industry around the world, that they could count on Ontario.

“We don't have fine print. We don't have caps and there aren't special conditions on the Ontario tax credit. We've also got the depth and breadth of infrastructure to support an unlimited number of productions once they're here,” she added.

Pinewood Studios also fills a significant gap in that infrastructure. Toronto has long had medium-sized studio spaces like Cinespace and Showline, as well as a number of smaller studios, many of them converted industrial or warehouse space. The missing piece was a purpose-built studio large enough for big-budget films, space that existed in both Vancouver and Montreal, built, unlike here, with government support.

But when Filmport, now Pinewood, opened in 2008, the expected rush of business did not follow. In fact, 2008 was one of the worst years for film and TV production in the city, at about $600 million. Soon, Filmport needed financial support from the City of Toronto, which took a 20 per cent equity stake, just to stay afloat.

Riding to the rescue came Pinewood Studios, the venerable U.K. company in business since 1934, best known for playing host to the James Bond series and the Carry On movies. The studio had planned to locate in Toronto and seized the chance to take over the flailing Filmport. For the city's film and TV industry, the last piece of a complex puzzle fell into place.

“The association with Pinewood gives us some good contacts, gives us some good economies of scale in terms of sales and marketing, and gives us some credibility,” Myers said.

Two mega-budget movies at Pinewood alone could give Toronto's and Ontario's industry the boost it needs to eclipse its main Canadian rivals, Vancouver and B.C., which have led in overall production in every year of the 2000s except for one, some years by as much as $600 million.

In North America, the key to success remains landing a major Hollywood film or TV series. Despite the loss of projects to other places, film and TV production in California is still a $30 billion annual industry.

“In the world maybe outside of India, (Los Angeles and California) still is the entertainment capital, we still have the majority of production,” said California Film Commission director Amy Lemisch.

Lemisch is well aware of the success that tax-credit programs, including Ontario's, have had.

“Each year, we do continue to lose production.... It is a global competition. It's not just a competition within North America. It's a global competition for our film and television dollars,” Lemisch added, noting the U.K., Australia and many places in Eastern Europe aggressively compete for Hollywood dollars.

“Production has always been a very mobile industry. It's very easy to pick up and move.”

Next Week: What the city is doing to make sure the movies stay this time.