FILM TAX FLOPS
BOX-OFFICE BUSTS COST BAY STATERS $42M
The Bay State shelled out more than $42 million in taxpayer dough to three made-in-movies that flopped at the box office last year — led by the much-hyped “Ghostbusters” reboot, which scored what appears to be the largest of the controversial film tax credits in state history.
The $26.7 million credit Beacon Hill lavished on the allfemale “Ghostbusters,” disclosed in documents released late yesterday in response to a Herald public records request, is the most a locally made movie ever got since the state began releasing reports in 2011. It tops another past summer blockbuster bomb, “R.I.P.D.” — a 2013 turkey about a team of undead cops who solve crimes — which raked in $26.6 million in taxpayer funds.
“Ghostbusters” — a reboot of the classic 1980s films with a Melissa McCarthy-led cast — was shot in several Bay State locations in 2015 under the code name “Flapjack,” the title it’s identified by in state records.
It grossed $229 million worldwide on a $144 million budget, but it reportedly needed to make at least $300 million to cover all costs, including marketing.
It also leads a list of other Bay State box office bombs and flicks that got tax credits last year, including:
• “The Finest Hours,” based on a book by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman, which recreated a daring 1950s Coast Guard rescue off Cape Cod, grossed $52 million worldwide and $27.6 million domestically. But it got a whopping $14.4 million in taxpayer funds and never came close to matching its estimated $80 million budget with ticket receipts.
• “Live By Night,” the Ben Affleck-led period crime drama, got $1.1 million in taxpayerfunded credits, en route to generating just $22 million worldwide — a small fraction of its estimated $108 million budget.
• “Central Intelligence,” an action comedy starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, pulled in $11.3 million in film tax credits to help offset its $50 million budget. The film, however, did far better than the others among audiences, grossing nearly $217 million worldwide.
The film tax credit has long been a source of controversy on Beacon Hill, where Gov. Charlie Baker has twice tried to phase it out or roll it back, only to see his proposals falter amid stiff opposition in the House.
The state Senate last week passed its own bid to curtail the credit during its budget debate, hiking the requirements for productions to qualify and limiting what the state could pay out to cover a multimillionaire movie star’s pay. But it remains to be seen if it survives in the final budget produced by a conference committee.
The huge windfall for Hollywood comes as the state is scraping for any available tax revenue, which is dragging hundreds of millions of dollars behind projections this fiscal year.
Established in 2006 to help draw film projects to the state, the tax credit is a 25 percent transferable rebate filmmakers can earn if they spend at least $50,000 in Massachusetts.
It’s been criticized as an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars, while its proponents have argued it spurs local spending.
Last year, the Massachusetts Production Coalition, an industry group, held up “The Finest Hours” as an example of the good local filming has done. The movie, which was shot on sites along Cape Cod and the South Shore during the summer and fall of 2014, bought or rented goods and services from more than 1,300 Massachusetts businesses in 155 communities, the group said at the time.
The crew spent $1.7 million on hotel rooms and created what the group called scores of jobs, though it’s difficult to directly compare its economic impact with its tax credit hit of $14.4 million.