Hollywood's Maryland bailout
Corporate moguls taking advantage of the little guy. Michael Moore should do a scathing expose. Today's column:
Entertainment moguls don't need to con little old ladies to finance productions any more, as they did in Mel Brooks' The Producers and its spinoffs.After all, there are state taxpayers to fleece.
Hollywood is getting struggling states to bid higher and higher for the glamour and supposed economic benefits of on-site film production. Maryland is joining the game. Del. Melony Ghee Griffith, a Prince George's County Democrat, says she'll introduce legislation that would have the state pay 28 percent of film-production costs incurred here.
"Maryland doesn't have anything close to being competitive" with other states, says director Barry Levinson, who was promoting the bill in Annapolis yesterday. "Unless state officials do something in terms of becoming more film-friendly, Maryland will continue to lose out."
You always wanted to help Barry produce films like Diner and Tin Men, right? Unfortunately, the taxpayer partners in these deals don't get to share in the box office, premiere parties or much of anything else. They just write checks.
