NC Lawmakers Spotlight Films For Better Tax Break

The North Carolina Film Office said industry spending in the state reached $228 million in 2007 but is expected to dip below $90 million this year as 28 states offer sweeter incentives. Georgia and South Carolina offer incentives of up to 30 percent. Michigan has perhaps the most generous tax credits in the nation at 42 percent of production costs.

Most galling was the Walt Disney Co.'s decision in April to move a movie project starring 16-year-old "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus to Georgia after Gov. Beverly Perdue scheduled a news conference to announce the movie would be filmed in Wilmington. The news conference ended up being canceled.

New Bern-based novelist Nicholas Sparks, who wrote the movie's script, rewrote the story's location from Wrightsville Beach and Wilmington to Tybee Island, Ga., and neighboring Savannah.

The project's estimated $17 million budget included $11 million in wages for electricians, carpenters, caterers and others, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo told the committee. Wilmington has been home for 25 years to the studio now known as EUE Screen Gems, where the CW TV series "One Tree Hill" is made. Each of the show's 23 episodes a year means about $1 million in local spending, Saffo said. That will amount to $160 million in spending after the seventh season, which resumed shooting this week, completes its seventh season, said state film office director Aaron Syrett.