Why more big budget movies aren’t filmed in Colorado

Colorado has great settings for movies, from the mountains to the plains, cities and ghost towns. Colorado’s Film Commissioner Donald Zuckerman says we have everything, but the ocean.

Zuckerman’s a movie producer, who became our state’s film commissioner in 2011. He knows all about our state missing out on some big budget films.

Some in the film industry rank our state as one of the worst places for the film industry because of tax incentives. Our state offers 20% tax break, which is below many other states.

“If I’m a producer and I need a mountain town I can find that mountain town in Utah, which has a 25% rebate, New Mexico, Northern New Mexico which has 25%,” said Zuckerman, “I could go to Alberta and get even more.”

People against raising the tax incentive say we shouldn’t be giving millions in tax breaks to millionaires. Zuckerman says most of the money goes to local companies.

“Most of the recipients are not millionaires,” he says, “we have approximately 77% of the projects that we’ve incentivized are homegrown are here in Colorado.”

Recently, an editorial in the Grand Junction Sentinel newspaper took state lawmakers to task for considering cuts to the film incentive program, and the impact that would have on rural Colorado.

The paper cites the economic boost from the film Hateful 8, which booked 9-thousand room nights during filming in Telluride.

A study by the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, found our state spent $12.1 million on film incentives since 2012, which brought in a positive economic impact of roughly $151 million.

A couple of other studies we found from other states show the film tax incentives don’t pay for themselves.

We’ll let you know when our state lawmakers make a decision on next year’s program.