In its annual survey of the best places to make films in the United States, Moviemaker Magazine once again ranked Philadelphia among the Top 10,. Editors placed the city at #9, after a busy 2009 production schedule when Jamie Foxx, Dev Patel and Reese Witherspoon came to shoot movies with F. Gary Gray (Law Abiding Citizen), M. Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender) and James L. Brooks (Untitled James L. Brooks Project) . (Last year, Philly ranked #15, in 2007 it was #5).
According to the magazine's editor Jennifer Wood, "The criteria for the list included a swarm of factors: Cost of living, employment opportunities, housing costs, crime rates and quality of life, state and city financial incentives, access to talent, size and closeness of the local moviemaking community, ease of shooting (i.e. amount of red tape), local production resources and movie-related vendors." Sharon Pinkenson, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, was on her way to the Sundance Film Festival and could not be reached for comment. But Flickgrrl is reasonably sure that Pinkenson would have thanked state legislators for keeping the endangered Film Tax Credit in the state budget. That's the financial incentive that gets productions to do business here.
Your favorite film shot in Philly? I'm going to declare a three-way tie between Rocky, Blow Out and The Sixth Sense, though I also like Philadelphia and Invincible.
Law Abiding Citizen was a great Philly movie...— nphillyguy- "Twelve Monkeys" had one of the most haunting and dazzling movie shots of Philadelphia: a lion roaring from an upper level of City Hall.— LScott
- Come on now. Trading Places is by far one of the best! I would say Rocky, Trading Places, and The Sixth Sense are three of the best.— NickFromGermantown
- "Witness" had some scenes in Philly. The "classic" film "The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon" with Tony Danza was filmed in Canada!— Slovs
I'm with LScott; 12 Monkeys used Philadelphia as a setting more effectively than any other movie shot here, I would say.- An underrated movie shot here was "Birdy". Though it didn't exactly cast the city in a positive light...
- Totally agree re: 12 Monkeys. I am a Philadelphian living in Sweden and saw it in a Swedish movie theatre. I felt like 12 Monkeys was almost a love-song to the grittiness of Philadelphia. The scenes around City Hall are stunning and the movie made me long for home. I had the same feeling watching "The Sixth Sense"...— KimGM
- "12 Monkeys" was fantastic, especially the use of the Convention Center as an airport, Eastern State Penitentiary as a mental hospital and City Hall as an abandoned civic center, wreathed in ivy vines. Thanks for your enthusiastic responses.— carrierickey
- BLOW OUT and WITNESS— KimThL
i'm still eagerly anticipating that skilled filmmaker that can restore colonial philly to its glorious past, preferably an early 19th century piece...just please don't tow my car while filming! that said, one can't overlook how important the movie PHILADELPHIA was, especially so with its early 90s timing/philly's turnaround...— theJOJ
- VIEWED
- Commented
- News | Sports | Business | What's Happening | Restaurants & Food | Entertainment | Living | Marketplace | Jobs
