Film shoot moved from GR to Big Easy

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A movie with a $20 million budget set to begin filming in Grand Rapids later this month has been moved to New Orleans after approval for the state film credits languished in the Michigan Film Office.

The movie, "Freelancers," would have been the fifth movie Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and his producer-partner Randall Emmett shot in Grand Rapids.

“Freelancers” is a crime drama about the son of a slain NYPD officer who joins the force, where he falls in with his father’s former partner and a team of rogue cops.

“I love Grand Rapids and Michigan. I have built relationships and friendships that will be lifelong," Emmett told Aaron Lafferty of Laff at the Movies. “We were in final approval process when the governor handed down the incentive reductions. I have received no indications of a real date for approval. This is beyond disappointing to me and our companies.”

The West Michigan Film Office is concerned about the loss of local jobs and money from the movie leaving town. West Michigan Film Office Commissioner Rick Hert said, “They took their 20 million bucks and will spend it somewhere else. Thousand of room nights, hundreds of jobs gone.”

Jackson and Emmett previously filmed “Caught in the Crossfire”, “Gun”, “Things Fall Apart, and “Setup" in Grand Rapids.

Emmett remains optimistic they'll be back. In an e-mail, he wrote, "This is just a bump in road and we along with thousand of others are fighting to get the incentives back to a place the entire state can benefit from.”

Dean Horn, who owns a film-stage-production company called Deano's , said he's sorry to see the film credits go. But his business has established clients, and he doesn't think film production will cease entirely in the area.

"I would hate to see the incentive go away for the fact it does fill holes in our schedule," Horn told 24 Hour News 8. "It does a great trickle-down theory, I really do believe, (for) the lift people, the generator people and the lumber yard (workers.) All of these people I called a lot."

The real tragedy, he said, is the incentives did not last long enough to make film a viable industry in Michigan.

"The incentive was never going to be there forever, it was purely to build the infrastructure," he said. "So what you have is a partially trained workforce and a partially built infrastructure which wouldn't accomplish anything in the grand scheme of things."

And he thinks film producers may leave sooner rather than later.

"There are projects that are in motion already that have chosen this area, but quickly we saw 50 Cent leave and we saw movies pack up and leave in the blink of an eye."

For more:

Laff at the Movies
 
24 Hour News 8's Steve Kelso contributed to this report.