Film bill lauded for big-budget possibilities

A movie-incentives bill got another green light Wednesday when a House committee passed it out unanimously.

Already clear of the Senate, SB14 moved to the full House. Later in the day, it was sent to the House Rules Committee because of fiscal-impact questions.

Supporters said Wednesday that boosting the state's film incentives could lead to big-budget movie and TV series productions being shot in Utah, as well as helping Utah land production studios.

"There are a couple of movie studios that are looking at the state of Utah. … Without this bill, none of them will come. They have made it very clear," said Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, told the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.

The current incentive program has a 15-percent tax rebate on in-state spending for approved productions, with a $500,000 cap per project. The bill calls for 20-percent rebates, up to $500,000 per project, and 20-percent tax credits with no caps — the latter designed to get the bigger productions.

The current incentive levels are "not compelling" for big-budget films, Perry said. "That's the big thing about this particular bill. It allows us to get the big-budget films, and what follows those big-budget films are the studios that are producing them. … This is the bill that brings the studios to the state, (and) also brings the (TV) series."

Roger Armstrong, a Park City resident, former vice president of Universal Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures and currently an entertainment lawyer, described Utah's current incentive as "actually quite low."

"The studios and the independent producers are now looking at incentive packages of various states as a fundamental piece of their financing," he said.

Armstrong said that several other states have film incentives that are "very attractive" when compared with Utah's.

"I do believe that if you pass this, they will come," he said. "I think that they will build studios here. I think that the infrastructure required to make movies will grow out of this and I think that there will be a lot of other tangible benefits of having people come up here and see what this state has to offer."

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, said Utah is "losing movies to other states that are giving as high as 40 percent rebates in ways far broader than what we do." Many Utahns are unaware of the opportunities Utah has to promote itself in films, he said.

"And many of the Disney movies, if you've looked, have shots of Utah in so many of them. But we really are missing out on the major, big productions," Hillyard said.

Rep. Eric Hutchings, R-Kearns, described SB14 as "a tremendous thing to do."

"The motion picture industry is, historically, fairly recession-resistant anyway. It's always been good that way, and I just applaud the efforts to keep this industry strong in the state. I think this is a tremendous move," Hutchings said.

After the vote, the committee's chairman, Rep. Todd Kiser, R-Sandy, thanked the film industry representatives at the meeting for "the good work that you're doing in our state. And we truly hope that this brings you back to Utah, to the Western days of the '60s, that we hope our deserts are filled with film canisters."

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com