Thursday, July 20, 2006

How could they?

They are shooting the Hairspray musical movie in Toronto instead of Baltimore, to take advantage of tax breaks and other benefits of shooting a film north of the border. While the article reports that some shooting will take place in Baltimore, it seems they have now decided simply to recreate Baltimore on a sound stage.

Baltimore is just as much of a character in this story as Tracy Turnblad or Penny Pingleton. John Waters seems to take the filming location change in stride, even though he was a staunch believer in making Baltimore prominent in the settings of most of his movies. It's all about the money these days.

This should be a wake up call to the film industry in the U.S., which needs to institute a few incentives to keep film crews from crossing the borders.

4 comments:

Kat Coble said...

"Good Morning, Toronto!"

"Good Morning, Soundstage!"

Nah. I don't think so.

chez bez said...

Is Waters directing this one as well? I loved the original but am having a hard time getting excited about this one.

St. Caffeine said...

Er, giving our tax dollars to Hollywood gazillionaires so they won't take their latte-sipping entourages north of the border? Nah, I think I'll pass on getting behind that one.

Given that, how could it NOT be filmed in Baltimore?

Vol Abroad said...

Has someone told Serial Mom about this? I don't think she'd be too happy.