RICHMOND, Va. (WVEC) -- Turning Virginia into movie land could be big for our economy.
"In 2014, it meant $413 million to Virginia's economy," said Andy Edmunds, the Director of the Virginia Film Office.
It's Andy's job to reel in Hollywood. We have had feature films here before. There’s a list at the bottom of this article. Here in Hampton Roads, Charlie Sheen jumped off the Berkeley Bridge in Norfolk while shooting "Navy Seals". Tom Cruise shot an explosive seen on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel for his "Mission Impossible" franchise. Tom Hanks shot "Captain Phillips" off the coast of Virginia Beach.
Andy says one of the best pitches he can make to film production companies is to highlight a diversity in potential location shoots.
"Beach locations, natural locations, great urban city locations, a great crew base in Hampton Roads because you have a lot of ongoing TV production that occurs everyday down there," Andy said. "It really is a content manufacturing factory down there."
But, when it comes to film production, Virginia loses out to other areas willing to roll the dice on giving massive tax incentives to production companies.
"For example in Georgia, they have over 250 million dollars a year in tax credits they're able to provide to induce this business," Andy said. “In Virginia, we have less than ten million per year."
Each year this time, Andy marches to the General Assembly to ask Virginia lawmakers for more money in the movie budget.
"We're very conservative in how we use Virginia's precious dollars in how to attract this business," Andy said.
Virginia tries to compensate by giving crews access to state locations without charging a location fee. That's one way they were able to bring Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" to Richmond.
"That equated to actual savings," Andy said. "Because at the end of the day, it's show business, not show fun as they say."
The strategy now is to support local production companies to get Virginia further on the movie making map.
"We want to build an industry from the ground up and not from the top down," Andy said.
That's why the Film Office supported Belltower Pictures in Richmond. They filmed their latest movie, "Shooting The Prodigal" in Richmond.
“We were able to get the benefit of a grant from the governor’s Motion Picture Opportunity Fund -- $90,000,” said David Powers, President of Belltower Pictures. “You can’t build an industry living from Spielberg to Ridley Scott. What we need and what we’re trying to do is to build a home grown, solid, fully-blown film industry here in Virginia.”
That film will premiere at the Richmond International Film Festival next week, which is another way the film office is trying to create Virginia movie making buzz.
“We have about 25 different countries and about 120 filmmakers traveling in,” said Heather Waters, Founder and Producer of the Richmond International Film Festival. “We hope these filmmakers from around the world will think about coming back here to shoot their future projects.”
Time will tell if sticking to this script will work, but Andy projects excitement and confidence.
"We've had the pleasure of working with Steven Spielberg three times, Tom Hanks several times, and a lot of repeat customers come back because of the great experience they have here in Virginia," Andy said. "We rely on that a lot."
Here's a list of some feature films shot in Hampton Roads:
- Minority Report -- Gloucester County
- Mission Impossible III -- Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel
- Navy Seals -- Norfolk
- Captain Phillips -- Virginia Beach
- The New World -- Jamestown
Films shot in Richmond area:
- Lincoln
- Dave
- The Jackal
- The Contender
- First Kids
- Hannibal
- Hearts in Atlantis
Films shot in Northern Virginia:
- Deep Impact
- Silence of the Lambs
- Forces of Nature
- Flags of Our Fathers
Other films shot throughout Virginia:
- Lassie in Tazewell County
- Dirty Dancing in Giles County
- What About Bob? at Smith Mountain Lake
- Crazy People in Chatham and Roanoke
Shenandoah Valley:
- The Four Seasons
- Sommersby
- God's and Generals
- War of the Worlds