Jim Rosica
The Florida Senate’s economic development bill took its first step of the 2016 Legislative Session, unanimously clearing the Commerce and Tourism Committee on Monday.
The bill’s sponsor, Clearwater Republican Jack Latvala, last week had promised it would contain provisions for film and television production incentives. Florida has been losing out to other states when it comes to film shoots.
Latvala used an example of his weekend movie viewing: “Dirty Grandpa,” in which Zac Efron‘s character “is tricked into driving his foul-mouthed grandfather, (played by) Robert De Niro, to Daytona Beach for spring break.”
Latvala noticed certain scenes of the beach and elsewhere didn’t “look quite right,” he said. After a little Internet research, he soon found out why: “Lo and behold, it was filmed in Savannah, Georgia … I thought, when are we going to do something about that.”
In 2010, lawmakers set aside nearly $300 million for incentives to bring movies and television projects to Florida. That money ran dry soon afterward.
Among other things, the measure (SB 1646) moves the state’s Office of Film and Entertainment from the Department of Economic Opportunity to Enterprise Florida, the state’s public-private economic development organization, and renames it the “Division of Film and Entertainment.”
It also creates an “Entertainment Action Fund, from which approved production companies may receive funds from the program for qualified expenditures in the state,” according to a staff analysis.
It fixes problems that chair Nancy Detert, a Venice Republican, had with the previous entertainment incentive program: Money was doled out on a “first come, first served” basis that resulted in available funds being gone within the first year of the program.
“It’s a black eye for Florida to have to recreate (Tampa’s) Ybor City in Georgia than actually film in Florida,” she said.
The movie “Live By Night,” directed by and starring Ben Affleck, is about about Prohibition-era rum running in Ybor City but is shooting in Brunswick, Georgia.
“I don’t care about Texas; I care about Georgia,” Detert said, referring to the Peach State’s film incentives.
The committee also added to Latvala’s bill a provision offered by Naples Republican Garrett Richter that requires companies who take incentive money from the state to offer health coverage to workers.
One comment
Tony c
January 26, 2016 at 7:59 am
It’s about time that somebody’s looking out for the working man of Florida , 3 years ago Florida invested 298 million dollars to the movie industry, and incentives. It brought in 4.1 billion dollars in revenues to Florida. Rick got the only one that doesn’t know this, pass the word we need this incentive. Tony C
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