How Atlanta became the Hollywood of the South
ATLANTA (AP) — The city is on fire. Atlanta, left in ashes 150 years ago by the Civil War, has recently survived a hoard of both fictional catastrophes — zombies, werewolves, anchormen, Vin Diesel’s friends — and fictional heroics from the likes of Captain America, Ant-Man and Katniss Everdeen (whose friends once repelled down the inside of the Marriott Marquis).
The metro area is widely known as the star of the state’s film and TV boom — and like any good success story, this one has places the plot is magnetized to, according to government officials, tour directors, local crew members and more.
Since 2008, Atlanta has played backdrop to more than 140 films and TV shows, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Everywhere, it seems, stories are being built.
“It’s really nice to be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities presented to you. You have to be ready,” said Craig Miller, chair of the Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Advisory Commission. “And now, Atlanta is ready.” The story of the growing production industry is one about taxes, legislation and politicking, told with words like “highly desirable financial incentives.”
To hear some state officials tell it, the story really began in 2004 when “Ray,” a biopic of beloved Georgia musician Ray Charles starring Jamie Foxx, chose instead to film in Louisiana, a state with its own incentives.
At the time, Georgia’s film “heyday” was considered the ’70s and ’80s, after then-Gov. Jimmy Carter created in 1973 Georgia’s state film commission — the first of its kind outside of California. “The Dukes of Hazzard” filmed its earliest episodes in Covington in 1978. But the industry later wilted as Canadian tax credits lured major productions away.
By 2008 Georgia began offering 20 percent tax credits to productions with at least a $500,000 production budget. If producers showed the Georgia logo at the end of the credits, the state would up its offer to 30 percent.
The money multiplied, and in fiscal year 2015, production companies spent $1.7 billion on 248 projects, an increase from the $1.3 billion spent in fiscal year 2014 which was already a more than 500 percent increase from 2008.
In a 2014, Film L.A. surveyed primary filming locations. Georgia was the third U.S. state to top the list, coming in at No. 5 overall behind California, New York and two international locations. Decades after “Dukes,” Covington was host again to a network TV show, The CW’s “Vampire Diaries.”
Programs like Georgia’s are not new, and they’re not without controversy. Any money divvied out in tax credits is revenue the state is giving up, and critics say there may not be an even return. Some argue the credits, which have faced fraud allegations elsewhere, amount to a too-pricey giveaway, returning mostly low-wage local jobs.
They argue that the industry’s rapid growth is directly tied to the credits themselves, and would end just as quickly if the program did.
“It’s a very expensive subsidy that is based on glamour and glitz and not creating jobs,” Nick Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, told the AJC in 2013.
State officials say Georgia is attractive for its diversity, and the tax credits are simply an appetizer. Productions can find coastlines, leafy neighborhoods, farmland and a sprawl of skyscrapers and interstates, all reachable within hours.
“Whatever sacrifice we make in revenue on the tax credit, we more than make up for through the multiplier effect of economic development,” Gov. Nathan Deal said in 2013.