Massachusetts Wanna Dance with Somebody. (Hooray for Hollywood!)

I will admit. I get excited when I spot a location I'm familiar with in a movie or TV show. I got a kick out of seeing my dry cleaners repurposed as a French restaurant in The Departed. (When they were filming, I spotted Martin Scorsese nearby.) It never fails to crack me up that there are still crowds of tourists stopping by the Cheers bar, just down the street from where I live. (No location filming done here: just the intro.) Sometimes I watch old Spenser for Hire reruns, just to see what Boston looked like 35 years ago.

(It doesn't take too much for me to get excited. I recently watched an episode of House Hunters on HGTV, and when they showed some homes in Chicago's Irving Park, I do believe I spotted my mother's now-defunct alma mater, Alvernia High School. Loved it! Even though I'm not 100% certain that the old school building I saw was, in fact, Alvernia.)

I seldom see any actors when they're filming here. Other than Jeff Bridges, who starred in the execrable 1994 film, Blown Away. And Will Ferrell, who my niece Caroline spotted when we were leaving Toscano on Charles Street. He was in town making some Christmas-themed film which, bizarrely, was set in New York. (I passed a street full of fake snow and office buildings decked out for the holidays. There was a NYC yellow cab parked on the street. Seriously, there is no way you can make Boston look like NYC, and vice versa.)

Anyway, because Boston is picturesque, interesting, and charming, while also having pockets of tough/cruddy - ditto for most of New England on all these attributes - there are a fair number of movies shot here.

And, of course, there's more to the story than our innate beauty and charm. The star-struck Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a very lucrative tax credit program for filmmakers, which was made permanent last spring.

The claims are, of course, that the money that filmmaking pumps into the local economy (e.g., Will Ferrell eating at Toscano), and the good jobs it creates, more than make up for the tax breaks. I don't know how true this is. You have to book weeks in advance to get a table at Toscano as it is. And I read that each job created costs $100K, which seems like a lot to me.

I like that movies are made here, but I dunno if the thrill of it all is worth the cost.

But for some folks, it's a very good deal.

Like the folks at Quincy's Marina Studios:

...a modern soundstage that its owner, Marina Cappi, envisions as a bustling Hollywood outpost with the potential to dramatically increase film and television production in Massachusetts. (Source: Boston Globe)

Apparently, it's working. Marina Studios is booked through 2026. And not just for movies set in Boston/New England, which would seem to make sense. Not at all: 

A crew of carpenters, electricians, and painters is scrupulously constructing a replica of the cozy Beverly Hills bungalow owned by famed music executive Clive Davis. A few feet away is an ersatz recording studio, complete with vintage sound board and a couch whose pastel upholstery conjures 1980s L.A.

Why L.A. in the 1980s? Because the film that's being shot at Marina Studios is a Whitney Houston biopic called I Wanna Dance with Somebody.

Now, I like Whitney Houston as much as the next gal. Her rendition of "I Will Always Love You" is gorgeous. And "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" has to be one of the top five get-everyone-out-on-the-dance-floor songs ever recorded. 

But what's Whitney Houston got to do with Boston? Okay, she was married to Bobby Brown, who's from here. But I don't think Boston factored into their married life. 

Now, Donna Summer would make sense. She's a Boston native. But Whitney Houston? Jersey, baby.

I guess if it's all about replicating a Beverly Hills bungalow, rather than shooting in an actual Beverly Hills bungalow, Boston - make that Quincy - makes as much sense as anyplace. 

Still...

But Marina Studios isn't the only film studio game in town (where town is defined as Massachusetts, not just Boston). 

New England Studios was built in 2014 on the grounds of what was Fort Devens, out in the boonies of central Mass. New England Studios:

...has hosted a slew of projects, including the Hulu series “Castle Rock,” Showtime’s “SMILF,” and the films “Little Women,” “Daddy’s Home 2,” and, most recently, George Clooney's "The Tender Bar."

Castle Rock is Stephen King, correct. So New England makes sense. SMILF, I think, takes place in South Boston. So, check! Little Women? Concord, Mass. Perfect. I have no idea what Daddy's Home 2 is about or where its about takes place. (They did have to build a multi-story ski chalet on one of their soundstages, if that's a clue.) I do know that the crew donated a bunch of Daddy's Home 2 sweatshirts to the day shelter where I volunteer. We were giving them out to our guests around Christmas, which I found pretty depressing, as so many of those guests aren't in touch with their families. That said, the guys did seem to like them well enough to wear them. 

As for The Tender Bar,  I read the book. It centers on Long Island. And why didn't I see George Clooney walking around when he was local? Sheesh. What's a tax credit for if I can't see George Clooney? 

Will Hollywood keep coming?

Apparently our tax credits are among the best (i.e., most lucrative to filmmakers) out there. 

The decision by the Legislature did not go unnoticed by the bean counters in Hollywood, said Jonathan Filley, a veteran movie producer and production manager whose credits include “Inside Man” and “Mr. Popper’s Penguins.”

“This industry, we’re horrible bottom feeders,” said Filley. “We’ll twist any story to make it work in a good tax-credit state. It’s terrible, but it’s true.”

Bottom feeders, eh? I'd feel better about this if I'd seen George Clooney walking by. 

While tax credits factor in, industry folks claim that, content demands are driving the opening up of new production facilities in some seemingly far-fetched places. Like the Boston area. It stems from:

...Hollywood’s increasingly urgent need for more production space to meet the exploding demand for content among streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Disney+.

Whether it's tax credits or the cry for content or both, Marina Cappi thinks here studio will benefit from how close it is to Boston. (Quincy is a few miles south and is on the T, our rapid transit system. Fort Devens is in the middle of nowhere.) Big names, she believes, will want to be close to Boston:

“When Stanley Tucci flies in to play Clive Davis, do you think he wants to sit in traffic for two hours after coming from L.A.?” said Cappi. “No, he wants to jump on the highway, or on a yacht, and come over in five minutes from the airport.”

I haven't seen the I Wanna Dance folks around, but apparently they've been leaving the studios for some location shoots, including in Boston. And on Nantasket Beach, which is proxying the Jersey Shore. (Without the GTL - Gym, Tan, Laundry - thang.)

And please, please, please let me know what Italian restaurants, if any, Stanley Tucci graces with his presence when he's in Boston playing Clive Davis. Tucci is a great cook and his CNN show, Searching for Italy is a tour of Italy's food traditions tour de force. Filmed on location. In Italy. 

No business like show business.