Utah film jobs doubled last year; industry calls for more incentives

SALT LAKE CITY — The film industry is one of Utah's economic bright lights, creating jobs, bringing a kind of star status to the state and a $5-to-$1 return from a tax-funded incentive program to bring projects here.

A call to keep them coming by continuing an incentive program scheduled to sunset next year went out by the state Film Commission Thursday during its summer industry luncheon.

Jobs created by film productions more than doubled — to 1,255 — during the fiscal year that ended June 30. The previous year, 520 jobs were generated. That's a total of $53 million to the economy, about five times the amount from last year, Utah Film Commission director Marshall Moore told attendees.

A bill passed in 2008 by the Legislature provided the incentive plan to lure production companies to Utah by offering $10 million in tax breaks once the film is finished.

The bill not only needs to be extended, it needs to extend for enough years in order to lure a potentially long-running TV series, Moore said.

"Touched by an Angel," which was filmed in the state for nine seasons between 1994 and 2003, spent about $1 million per episode, he said.

The incentive has helped land projects, the director said, noting that "John Carter of Mars," which just finished filming here, was lured by the $5.5 million in incentives. It is a live-action/animated Disney/Pixar movie.

"It won't be in theaters for more than a year, because it has a 62-week post-production schedule because of all the computer animation," Moore said. "But it's already building on a relationship that the incentive helped establish."

The bigger the budget, the longer a production company stays, and the more Utahns have jobs, he said, a link that reaches back to the 1965 movie "The Greatest Story Ever Told," when Charlton Heston starred as John the Baptist exhorting repentance from a multitude of Kane County residents in a small canyon now covered by Lake Powell.

"Unicorn City" is the latest film project to come to Utah. Its filmmakers were offered $30,000 but will bring probably five times that amount to the Alpine-area economy.

e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com