More tax breaks will mean more movies made in Utah, commission says

KANAB — Southern Utah's biblically proportioned Plateau Province weather-whittled silt and red sandstone has been stealing movie scenes since John Ford made it the ramparts of the Old West.

Now a new generation of filmmakers is venturing into the bluish-greenish volcanic leftovers for a new, alien backdrop featuring montmorillonite clay.

Looking more at home on the moon than on Earth, the clay is the ideal off-world terrain for modern moviemakers such as those making "John Carter of Mars," the novel-based live-action/digital animation Disney movie that just ended 120 days of shooting in Kanab, Hanksville, Delta and Moab.

With director Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo," "Wall-E") and producer Colin Wilson ("Avatar") mining a story out of Bentonite, as it's commonly called by home remedy enthusiasts, might be good for an ailing economy and could be Utah's next big stardust.

Utah's unique landscape is magic to filmmakers, state Film Commission director Marshall Moore said. He will likely repeat that mantra on Wednesday when the commission makes its first official pitch to a legislative committee to extend Utah's tax breaks for production companies that shoot here.

"('John Carter of Mars') was the largest, longest film done so far in Utah — an ideal project for Utah because of the unique landscapes we have within our borders," Moore said last week. The movie "127 Hours," a Fox Searchlight production directed by Danny Boyle, also recently finished shooting in Utah, and Lockheed/Martin used it as the backdrop for an industry marketing and promotional film.

The films represent a kind of graduation into movies from television, which has been Utah's most recent claim to fame with the series "Crossroads" and "Touched by an Angel," which filmed in Utah for 15 years, Moore said.

Because of the incentive of Senate Bill 14 passed by the Legislature three years ago and due to sunset, 22 projects came to the state during fiscal 2010 that ended June 30. They stayed for 418 productions days, created 1,215 jobs and amped up the local economy by $59 million.

The year before the tax incentives went into effect, Utah had only 11 projects, 190 productions days, 520 jobs and an economic impact of $11.3 million, according to commission figures.