From big names like the remake of Red Dawn to tiny little films like recent review target Mr. Art Critic, you’ll find that a whole lot of films coming out or coming soon have a whole lot in common–filming location.
The state that gave the world Evil Dead, Home Improvement, and Dumb and Dumber (yes, Jeff Daniels IS one of theirs) is now poised to become the cheapest place to film movies anywhere outside of third world countries.
Welcome to Michigan, folks–home of the best tax credit for filmmakers in North America. More films are being produced here this year alone than from the entire period of 1946 to 1988. It’s that tax credit that’s making filmmakers interested–just for background, a deduction reduces income considered for tax purposes, while a credit reduces the total tax amount owed. And in Michigan’s case, it’s a whopping forty percent of all amounts spent on making the film in Michigan. Drop ten million here–a tiny budget by filmmaking standards–and you can kiss four million good bye on your tax bill.
And as long as that stays in place, beleaguered Michigan has every opportunity to make itself the new Hollywood.
“Howl” takes cinematic venture after 50 years of book-length poem launched an obscenity trail in the 
1950’s.
Take a look at the cast including David Strathaim, Alan Alda, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Paul Rudd with James Franco as Allen Ginsberg, the author of the controversial poem.
Howl is being touted as a beatnik piece by creating an animation re-imaging in segments described as “a Beat Fantasia.”
If anyone knows their freedom of speech history, they’ll recall Ginsberg’s poem envisioned issues — free speech, government censorship, militaristic empire building, fear-mongering and sexual conformity — that are relevant today according to the film producers, directors and writers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who make their debut with this 1950’s era film.
From Variety comes word that Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Daniels and Lisa Kudrow have joined the cast of Paper Man.
The movie follows the unlikely friendship between a failed author and a Long Island teen. It marks the directing debut of Kieran and Michele Mulroney.
Shooting is set to begin November 12 in New York and Montauk.
The trades are reporting that David Strathaim, Alan Alda, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Paul Rudd have joined the cast of biopic Howl.
The film, created by documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, is set in the 1950s, following the obscenity trial launched to censor Allen Ginsberg’s book-length poem. The Epstein & Friedman duo make their writing, producing and directing debut on this project.
James Franco is set to play Ginsberg, with the recently added cast to play various real-life characters including the prosecuting attorney, prosecution witness, radio personality as well as literary critic.
(pictured: Allen Ginsberg)
A two-character play is in develop as a feature film adaptation of “Blackbird,” with playwright David Harrower aboard to script the drama about the confrontation between a middle-aged man and the then-underage girl with whom he had a relationship years earlier.
“Blackbird” premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, and then transferred to London’s West End, where as a well-received run won the 2007 Olivier Award for new play. Then, that same year it was brought to Off Broadway by Manhattan Theater Club in a staging directed by Joe Mantello and starring Jeff Daniels, whom I think is a wonderful actor, and Alison Pill.
Variety offers some of tidbits about the play; such as in 2007, Cate Blanchett directed the play’s Australian premiere for the Sydney Theater Company, while next summer, a production top billing “CSI” star William L. Petersen is scheduled to play Chicago’s Victory Gardens.