Posted 20 December, 2006 in CA News
Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Box office returns: Will Smith’s new movie, “Pursuit of Happyness,” did a nice haul at the box office this past week — and it didn’t do badly for San Francisco, either.
The rags-to-riches tale of a Tenderloin homeless man was filmed almost entirely in San Francisco, where the production spent an estimated $22 million and created the equivalent of 400 jobs while shooting. The movie also grossed $1 million for the city in various taxes and fees.
Good news for the city’s sagging film industry, which brought in only $150 million last year, compared with $461 million at the height of the local film boom in 1996.
Back in the ’90s, you couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into a film crew, be it Don Johnson’s TV series “Nash Bridges,” Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage working on “The Rock,” Robin Williams doing “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Bicentennial Man” and “Patch Adams,” or Whoopi Goldberg filming the “Sister Act” movies. In all, 61 feature films were shot here that decade.
These days, however, San Francisco’s distinctive views are no match for the tax breaks and other incentives being offered to film companies in other states, or the money that can be saved by shooting in British Columbia or even Bulgaria.
“Filming in San Francisco has always been a cyclical thing, but these days the film business has become more and more about the bottom line,” said city Film Commission Director Stefanie Coyote. “Other places are willing to throw money at them,” Coyote said, “and it works.”
That’s a wrap.
