So Meet Bill bombed. (OK, with a box office take of $62,597, the Aaron Eckhart/Jessica Alba rom-com that created a minor celebrity stir when it filmed here two summers ago would have to work its way up to being a bomb.) But that means that when it comes to playing host to out-of-town productions, St. Louis has nowhere to go but up, right?
Long the "bastard child of state government," as local actor/writer/producer Mike Ketcher puts it, the Missouri Film Commission is getting a financial shot in the arm that could make it easier to lure Hollywood directors in search of inexpensive shooting locales to the state and — better yet — STL. For months, the commission sat in limbo as it neared the end of a contract with the Missouri Department of Economic Development, and future funding options were scarce. But not only did the DED extend that contract by a year, effective this month, two bills proposed to raise the commission's annual budget by 66 percent, to $250,000, are being debated in the Missouri legislature. MFC director Jerry Jones says his "gut feeling" is that Gov. Blunt will approve one form of the budget bump this summer.
Closer to home, Ketcher has been doing his part. One proposal he floated to Mayor Slay in an April meeting: Let filmmakers use vacant city office space as production HQ while filming downtown. "The city's got lots of empty offices," he says, "so that would be a little incentive that St. Louis could offer." Just as long as New Line doesn't want to shoot that Escape From New York remake here ...
