WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - With one month left in the fiscal year, a feature film and ads for a home improvement chain are the only projects to take advantage of North Carolina’s film grant program.
The StarNews of Wilmington reports the program has attracted “Words on Bathroom Walls” that’s filming in Wilmington and five commercials for Home Depot.
Last summer, legislators approved $15 million in funding to be added to $19 million in leftover funds from the previous 2016-17 budget year and $31 million in recurring funds for each year after. The program also is open-ended now instead of expiring on Jan. 1, 2020.
Those changes were made after legislators ended the previous incentive program in 2014, causing a production drought.
The local film industry knows the limitations of the grant program compared to incentives that some other states offer.
“We are getting more calls than we have been,” said Wilmington Regional Film Commission Director Johnny Griffin at the commission’s recent board meeting. “But through our visits and our conversations, as we’ve always said, with this incentive it is just going to take time as people get their heads around it and understand it.”
“Words on Bathroom Walls” is eligible for $2.35 million in grant money based on its $9.3 million in estimated direct in-state spending, including 120 crew positions. Along with $500,000 in eligible funding for five Home Depot commercials, the projects account for less than $3 million of earmarked funds.
If no other projects apply and are approved by the end of June, the remaining $31 million will be added to next year’s $31 million for a total of $62 million in available funding in 2018-19.
But the grant money has caps that eliminate big projects such as “Iron Man 3” from considering North Carolina. That movie, which starred Robert Downey Jr. and was filmed in Wilmington, received the maximum $20 million tax rebate from the previous incentive program in 2012.
The second season of Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow” got $14.5 million from the incentive.
Under the incentive program, television series can only earn $9 million per season, while feature films can only earn $5 million. Minimum spends for television series are also set at $1 million an episode and $5 million for films.
The 10-episode first season of TNT’s locally shot “Good Behavior,” which aired in 2016-2017, earned $7.7 million from the grant program, according to state audit records.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.