The skeptics — and there are plenty of them — who question why Rhode Island and Massachusetts should trip over themselves to shower film companies with tax breaks need only watch the trailer to “Moonlight Kingdom.”
You can’t buy publicity like this.
It doesn’t open until May so there’s no telling how good it is (the trailer looks great) but Rhode Island, where every bit of it was filmed, looks stunning (see link on our website).
The Wes Anderson movie stars Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand and more. One moment they are exploring the wilds of Prudence Island, another they are out on the Glen Manor Dock with a Sakonnet River backdrop, and other scenes put them on ocean beaches edged by rock cliffs, wilderness ponds and in quaint old buildings. Who wouldn’t visit such a place?
The incentives are generous because that’s what it takes these days.
Both states offer “aggressive” 25 percent payroll and production tax credits.
Massachusetts throws in sales tax exemptions and “extraordinary locations — country quaint to ultra modern, seaside to mountainside, 17th century to 21st century.”
Not to be outdone, Rhode Island touts its film-friendly neighborhoods, restaurants, scenery and size. In “this compact state ... one twenty-minute road trip can take you from a vibrant cityscape to a scenic ocean drive ... Believe me, you won’t be disappointed.”
Critics say neither state can afford such largesse. They say the money would be better spent on teachers and firefighters, that the benefits go mostly to out-of-staters.
The incentives do involve serious money — one director working in Rhode Island said film executives “would shoot a movie on Mars if they could get a 25 percent tax break.”
But the benefits are every bit as serious, especially when movies look like “Moonlight Kingdom.” No amount of brochures and big-budget 30-second TV spots have that sort of impact — think back to the cityscapes in that canceled show “Providence.”
As the boating industry can testify, remarkable things can happen when the tax collector backs off.
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