Last week, the Texas Senate announced its budget includes $498 million to revamp the Texas Film Incentive. The state wants to encourage film and TV production in the state, and to encourage the state’s lawmakers, a group of famous actors with ties to Texas have made a video pitch.
Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson reunite in a “True Detective” moment in this new ad directed by series creator Nic Pizzolato. The supporting cast includes Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, and Renée Zellweger.
The case the detectives are solving this time is a business case for why making films and TV in Texas is the smart thing to do.
According to KHOU, the actors want the legislature to pass a bill that would add bigger and better incentives for the film industry, which they say would create thousands of Texas jobs and boost local economies.
McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde and graduated from the University of Texas, is eager to turn Texas into a new hub for film and television.
There are some great lines in the promotional video that capture the essence of the argument. For example, McConaughey says:
Hollywood, it’s a flat circle, Wood…Look, this industry is like somebody’s memory of an industry, and the memory is fading. I’m talking about a whole new hub for film and television. A Renaissance. A rebirth.
Texas is an ideal setting for a variety of productions, offering a unique combination of diverse and strikingly original landscapes—ranging from desert terrain, mountains and rolling hills to piney forests, beaches, and densely populated urban centers.
Famous films and TV shows that have been made in Texas include, Benji (1974), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Dallas (TV Series, 1978-1991), Hope Floats (1998), The Last Picture Show (1971), Logan’s Run (1976), Lonesome Dove (TV Mini-Series, 1989), Office Space (1999), Paris, Texas (1984) and the list goes on.
The state has a long history of hosting Hollywood productions and a growing studio presence, especially in Central Texas near Austin today. Hill Country Studios in San Marcos and Line 204 in Bastrop are notable new developments that may eventually employ hundreds of local people.
One of the interesting questions about this pro-industry movement, and the state’s embrace of it, is how it bumps up squarely against existing anti-Hollywood bias that’s in place in Texas. Given how distasteful much of the content made in Hollywood is to lawmakers and citizens in the Lone Star State, why open the doors to this industry’s unholy influence?
The Austin Chronicle (the city’s alt-weekly) wonders if the state’s power brokers don’t have a remake in mind. The paper asks, “When Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says he wants to make Texas the new Hollywood, does he mean a place where dreams of stardom and big commerce intertwine, or Reliance-Majestic Studios, where notorious racist D.W. Griffith felt safe to churn out his neo-Confederate propaganda?”
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