Posted on 06/05/2005 8:17:03 AM PDT by thenderson
CINDERELLA MAN
When Americans are unemployed, they put even more out of work to make this movie. The highly publicized film "Cinderella Man" opens June 3. It is a classic American story in every way, with one exception: where it was made. It was filmed in Toronto instead of the United States, using labor heavily subsidized by the Canadian government. How ironic that this story of a man literally fighting to provide for his family at the height of the Depression should be filmed in a foreign country, costing America hundreds of middle-class jobs and contributing to the dangerous trade imbalance which now deeply concerns our economic experts.
James J. Braddock, the "Cinderella Man," was born in New York City to Irish immigrant parents. His is a real-life "Rocky" story. He was a poor local boxer struggling to support his family when, fighting as a ten-to-one underdog, he defeated Max Baer to become the heavyweight champion of the world in 1935. Seventy years later, the crowds cheering him on to victory in the film about his life are no longer Americans because the background artists portraying them are Canadians, as is the overwhelming majority of people employed in the making of this movie. Material that should be triumphantly American is counterfeit, a cheap and tawdry imitation of who we are.
In recent years millions of American jobs have been outsourced overseas to take advantage of lower labor rates. However, Canada and Australia, where "Superman" is now being filmed, are hardly third world nations. Unlike other industries, in the case of film and television production labor costs are made artificially lower in these and other countries by government subsidies which violate our trade agreements.
When 28 members of Congress sent a letter of protest over the choice to film James Braddock's story in Canada, the studios which produced "Cinderella Man" claimed they went to Toronto because it was the only place that had the right architecture. That's a lame excuse for a purely monetary decision. Plenty of cities in the United States still have buildings with the historically correct "look" for this picture. The studios went to Canada because one third of their labor costs were kicked back by the government, pure and simple.
The outsourcing of this and other productions in order to take advantage of illegal subsidies offered by foreign governments is more than just a moral and patriotic outrage. It doesn't only cost American jobs. It is also a very real threat to the economic stability of the United States. The filming of American movies and TV shows in foreign countries contributes to our ballooning trade deficit and the devaluation of our dollar against other currencies. As a result, outsourced production harms every single American citizen in a very real way.
Like the great champion James Braddock, you have the power to fight back. Send a message that the outsourcing of his story is not acceptable to Americans.
Send a personal message directly to the people responsible for the decision to take the production of this most American story and the many jobs it generated to a completely foreign country by writing the producers of "Cinderella Man:"
Brian Grazer Ron Howard Imagine Entertainment 9465 Wilshire Blvd., 7th Floor Beverly Hills, CA 90212 Fax: 310-858-2020 Phone: 310-858-2000
Bob Weinstein Harvey Weinstein Miramax 375 Greenwich St. New York, NY 10013 Fax: 212-941-3949 Phone: 212-941-3800
Ron Meyer Universal Pictures 100 Universal City Plaza Universal City, CA 91608 Fax: 818-777-2500 Phone: 818-777-1000
Penny Marshall Parkway Productions 7150 La Presa Drive Los Angeles, CA 90068 Fax: 323-874-3124 Phone: 323-874-6207 ...........................................................................................................................
It's time that hollywood finally gets what it always wanted. Higher taxes for the rich.
I purpose a 90% tax on all income over 1 million dollars that a movie earns.
It would be fun to watch the libs in hollywood sqirm if such a tax were purposed.
Business is business.
Just ask Senator Jon Corzine, who parlayed his Wall Street millions into the Senate........
Business is business and they keep giving us the business......
They can't even make war movies in Hollywood any more. They had to go to Morocco to make Blackhawk Down because of all the stupid gun control laws.
A lot of movie financing money does not even come from within the United States.
Many states have complex laws, including tax laws, and regulations making it more expensive to shoot movies domestically. You have to research these laws to understand how difficult many U.S. states make it to shoot a domestic movie.
Further, you have to read the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) contracts to see how expensive the domestic actor's union has made shooting in the U.S.
You also have to examine the highly expensive liability insurance costs of shooting within the United States - AMERICA IS A LAWYER'S PARADISE.
I'm actually a damn fool for even trying to shoot a movie in my own country but I happen to think an American Western needs to be shot in the United States!
What a concept!
Open Range was shot in Canada. Cold Mountain was shot in Eastern Europe. Monte Walsh was shot in Canada.
Also, Hollywood is regularly attacked for the trash movies it produces but....
WHERE ARE THE CONSERVATIVES WITH MOVIE FINANCING MONEY?
It's easy to trash American movie-makers for being anti-American but American state governments and lawyers have destroyed domestic filmmaking by looking at it as a monstrous pig trough from which to feed.
It is the unions in Hollywood that drives the cost up. Unions drive more work out of the US than any other single thing.
Soon the only unions will be government employees.
But the Hollywood libs all claim to be 1000% pro union. . .
You beat me to it.
I remember reading something about this years ago, it just stuck in my head; some show was looking for a production site, and the choices came down to the 'real' location or (if I recall correctly), Vancouver, BC.
The person who wrote the article ran down a list of reasons to go Canadian, not the least of which being the general attitude of the relative cities. The Canadian city saw the whole thing as a tourism draw, i.e., 'cool, the series xxx was shot here, come visit, maybe even watch the filming,' whereas the main concern from our side of the border was 'how can I, or my group, make a dime off of this.'
The 'offenders' included the local peace officers, who would all need double or triple overtime, various unions, because this was a city project, so only union labor would be permitted, the lawyers (all sorts of liablity issues), and so on and so forth.
The producers took the path of least resistance, and went Canadian.
On the other hand, the various unions could be proud, because no non-union labor took place, the lawyers could count themselves victors, since all those nasty liabilities were avoided.
Of course, the US city made no money, either, but that was, apparently, beside the point.
"It is the unions in Hollywood that drives the cost up. Unions drive more work out of the US than any other single thing."
That's also true in other cities trying to lure film production. In Boston, the unions' corruption has scared off film producers:
http://www.nlpc.org/olap/UCU4/06_06_01.html
WHERE ARE THE CONSERVATIVES WITH MOVIE FINANCING MONEY?
I'll give you 50 bucks if you put me in the movie, write-in a scene with me driving a tank with a hot bikini-chick on the gun, and I don't have to sleep with you.
Wow, you're an angry little elf.
Here in MA the Teamsters used to ride roughshod over any production coming here. They were/are big political players, hooked up with both parties.
The went to Morocco because it could be faked for Somalia, not because of "stupid gun control laws." That is an absolutely ridiculous and uninformed statement.
You are on the wrong forum if you expect much informed, or even intelligent, reaction to American movies--their content, their actors, their production realities.
Canada has made it a priority to subsidize and otherwise attract film and television production. When you factor their incentives, and the value of our dollar over the Canadian dollar, it is not remarkable at all that so much American production heads north (of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't know).
As for your shooting your pic stateside, bravo.
But be prepared: I've known of more than a few productions that were going to be "Amercian-made," and then, just before the trigger was going to be pulled, the financials (and/or the financiers) yanked the production to Canada. The cost of business overcame "commitment to American craftsmen," etc.
George Romero's latest zombie pic is set in downtown Pittsburgh...where the three rivers meet...it was going to be made here, no matter what. It HAD to be--where else would you get three major rivers meeting in a downtown metropolis?
In Canada, that's where (not exactly, but they cheated the river stuff). The production went north. Against Romero's wishes.
Very good report.
Unfortunately, you don't know what you're talking about.
Are you speaking of Pittsburgh?
This town was "hot," for production, a while back.
Then the unions got full of themselves, thought of themselves as indispensable, started making what I think were unfair demands.
All that was "unique" about Pittsburgh was discovered by producers, in short order, in Montreal and Vancouver.
Team America, World Police, called them "FAG", film actors guild.
I thought it a well suited name.
No, he's not angry. He's just telling it the way it is.
Unions are a big factor in production costs,but let's not forget the ridiculously high salaries and "extras" that actors demand.
Watch the documentary on the DVDs. Ridley Scott said it himself. Part of the reason they went to Morocco instead of building a set in the US desert somewhere was because the weapons were easier to obtain there.
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