Thank goodness *someone* is looking out for Disney's interests

Pete’s Dragon just got gifted $20M. Because reasons.

I hate this shit :mad:

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If by “gifted” you mean they chose to shoot in a country that helps subsidize their shooting costs, yes, this happens all the time. It’s why films set in New York get shot in Canada (or Boston).

NZ reaped massive tourism benefits from the LOTR movies. $20 million is nothing compared to what they’ll recoup if Pete’s Dragon is a hit.

There’s a lot of debate here in Boston about whether subsidizing movies shot here that work hard to make the movie not look anything like Boston are helping tourism or not. But movies set mostly in the wilderness that make people gasp and say “holy crap where did they film this??” are a pretty good investment for a city/country. Heck, I remember wanting to go to NZ as a kid after seeing “Willow”.

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Most BawSton movies I watch that are made there and still look like it tend to focus on 02127 & as such, aren’t necessarily going to encourage most people to want to tour the area (as depicted). Except me.

I’m against making the rich richer at every opportunity. Of all production companies that don’t need to be cut a break, the Devil D is prolly #1.

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It’s more an investment on the part of NZ as a return on Disney’s investment in their country. They use tons of local craftspeople, tradesmen, unions, studios, and creatives, so bringing a huge production like this to the country pays off well and employs tons of people even before the sort of nebulous hard-to-quantify tourism boost. I’m personally cool with a production having that kind of benefit, but I’m not the kind of person who calls Disney “the Devil D”, so.

Yeah, movies like Black Mass aren’t exactly going to drive tourism to Southie, and nor are things like Surrogates that made the seaport district into a sci-fi dystopian future. The movie that probably showed the area the most love recently was, of all things, Ted, which was an extended love letter to Boston.

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How about Gone Baby Gone or Spotlight ?

Oh yeah! I never saw that one (Gone Baby Gone). I think that’s mostly in South Boston, as well. I hear Spotlight does a fantastic job of recreating early-2000s Boston. Although Wikipedia tells me it was partially shot in Ontario, lol

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon used to live across the street from me in their early days. Friends who lived next door said “they’d party all the time with a steady stream of young attractive men. I hated those guys.”

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GBG is a truly ugly film. In a good way. The people are resoundingly unpleasant.

A good film.

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