By Stacey Plaisance
NEW ORLEANS (AP) --A batch of big-budget films is set to be shot in Louisiana over the summer as the state's investment in a tax credit program draws cost-conscious producers.
Among planned shoots are "Fantastic Four," ''Terminator 5," ''Pitch Perfect 2" and "Jurassic World," the fourth film in the "Jurassic Park" series. The television series "NCIS: New Orleans" and "American Horror Story: Freak Show" are also being shot this summer.
The flurry of activity is encouraging entrepreneurs who provide services for production companies, in turn creating jobs. Louisiana ranked ahead of California — and anywhere else — in the number of live-action movie shoots in a study of 2013 releases from Hollywood's largest studios.
Chris Stelly, executive director of Louisiana Entertainment, the state-run film office, said officials certified nearly $810 million in production company spending on 123 projects in 2013 and issued $251 million in tax credits.
Louisiana offers tax credits of up to 40 percent of the money spent to buy, build and use movie production facilities.
Since the tax credit program began in 2002, services that have grown in the state include studios, sound stages, special effects, casting, costume rental, post-production and editing.
Andre Champagne's Hollywood Trucks LLC is one of the success stories. The Louisiana native launched the company in 2007 with a private partner and assistance through the state tax incentive program after moving back from Los Angeles.
The company has grown annual revenue from about $600,000 in its first year to $5 million in 2013, Champagne said. Its fleet expanded from seven vehicles to more than 300, including luxury trailers used by Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Ben Affleck and Chris Rock.
Hollywood Trucks recently expanded to Georgia and has plans to open in London.
"One project led to the next, led to the next, led to the next, and before we knew it, I was here for two or three years, and it's just grown substantially every year since," he said.
Louisiana's progress was demonstrated in a recent report by the permitting agency Film L.A. that examined the locations for shoots by the six major movie studios and five of the biggest independent studios. The agency said that 18 of the studios' 108 motion pictures released last year were shot in Louisiana, including "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," ''Dallas Buyers Club" and "Grudge Match."
California and Canada had 15 projects each, followed by Britain with 12 and the state of Georgia with nine.
"Now we represent about 14,000 jobs, up from roughly zero 10 years ago, and that's a pretty important thing for us to do," said Will French, president of the Louisiana Film and Entertainment Association.
French said TV production is also thriving in Louisiana. Among the newest is a pilot now filming in Shreveport called "Salem," based on the colonial-era witch trials.
"It's exciting. It just is," said actor John Goodman, who starred in the New Orleans-shot HBO series "Treme" and moved to New Orleans from Los Angeles in the 1990s. "I don't like to see Los Angeles getting hammered, but it's nice to see so much business down here."
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More