GEORGE CLOONEY - MOVIE SCRIPTS BEING ALTERED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TAX INCENTIVES

MOVIE SCRIPTS BEING ALTERED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TAX INCENTIVES

In order to take advantage of tax incentives, foreign subsidies and weaker currencies, some producers are rewriting scripts of movies they are producing in order to switch locales from California to foreign countries and other states, the Wall Street Journal observed today (Tuesday). The newspaper cited one producer, who, in an effort to lower costs, changed the action of his movie Velocity from Texas to Madrid, Berlin, and Montreal. The producer, Ingo Volkammer, told the Journal , "I would rather back a script into a budget than a budget into a script." Jean-Luc De Fonti, a primary investor in the George Clooney movie The Men Who Stare at Goats , said he decided to shoot half the film in Puerto Rico and the other half in New Mexico because of tax incentives in those places. "We didn't have to change the script" to move to those locations, De Fonti told the Journal , "but we had to convince the talent to spend some time in Puerto Rico and New Mexico."

27/10/2009