Quinn tours Chicago's Superman movie set
No state wants deadly viruses, gangsters and comic book villains roaming its cities and towns. But Illinois has welcomed them all, and the state touted the local benefits of the film industry on Tuesday as filming of the new Superman movie was wrapping up.
“Having a big movie like `Man of Steel' being made here in the state of Illinois is really a shot in the arm for our economy, and we want to keep it going,” Quinn said after visiting the set in downtown Chicago.
It's the latest big-budget film to use the state and Chicago as a backdrop, pumping money into the economy and enjoying a tax credit that helps moviemakers keep down their costs.
Quinn said Illinois saw a record $161 million in film industry spending last year, largely thanks to such major motion pictures as the pandemic thriller “Contagion,” the special-effects blockbuster “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” Vince Vaughn's `The Dilemma” and Jennifer Beals' now-canceled TV show, “The Chicago Code.”
State officials said “Contagion” contributed $12.5 million in spending and created about 250 jobs during production, while “Transformers” resulted in $24 million in spending and about 400 jobs.
Producers said the latest Superman installment created about 550 jobs in Illinois during production that included turning the Kendall County city of Plano into the fictional town of Smallville, Clark Kent's hometown. They raved about moviemaking outside Hollywood in Illinois and Chicago because of the skilled labor force available to work as crew members, the great locations and the tax credit
“This is the third film that I've been involved with that shot here in Illinois, so I must like something `cause I keep coming back,” said producer Charles Roven, who also worked on “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” here.
Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a government watchdog group, said there's no doubt that the film industry is important to Illinois' economy because of the jobs it creates — everyone from caterers and highly skilled crew members to generating business for rental companies — when movies come to town.
`It's a boon, but it's not unto itself the answer to 9 percent unemployment. But, it's good to have a healthy mix,” Msall said.
Betsy Steinberg, managing director of the Illinois Film Office, said she “pounds the pavement” in Los Angeles to bring new projects to Illinois, which has played to host to scores of TV shows and movies over the years. They include “The Informant!”, a movie about agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland that was shot for several weeks in Decatur and starred Matt Damon, the firefighter drama “Backdraft” in the 1990s and the Johnny Depp movie “Public Enemies” about gangster John Dillinger that filmed in Chicago and other locations including Joliet.
“Projects here mean spending in our state, and they mean jobs,” Steinberg said.
Helping attract projects is the state's 30 percent tax credit on money spent on Illinois goods, services and wages for Illinois residents. Roven and a fellow producer said while other places have bigger tax credits than Illinois, but they don't have the variety of locations the state does with a big city and rural areas easily within reach.
“Was it the only state on our list when we started doing our pre-production? No. But as we went through the checklist of what was important you guys hit all the marks,” Roven said.