{"id":37598,"date":"2025-04-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/?p=37598"},"modified":"2025-04-02T19:12:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T23:12:01","slug":"bringing-movies-to-main-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/bringing-movies-to-main-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Movies to Main Street"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO, Motion Picture Association<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CinemaCon is one of my favorite moments of the year. It\u2019s a time to celebrate theaters and the cinematic experience. It\u2019s an opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues, exhibitors, studio representatives and creators\u2014to hail everything we love about going to the movies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As community that believes in the power of film and cares about its future, it\u2019s also a chance to ask ourselves: Where does this industry stand? What does it take to bring more hits to the big screen? How does production impact not just exhibition but the creators who make films, the consumers who watch them, and the communities where they\u2019re produced?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Motion Picture Association, our focus has always been clear: We defend freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and the freedom of casts and crews to film, shoot, and create anywhere and then share their imaginations with audiences everywhere. We protect their content, counter online piracy, and give them every opportunity to keep us wowed, amazed, astonished, and inspired by what we\u2019re seeing in our theaters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the center of our efforts is advocacy around something called production tax incentives. Which sounds wonky, but it remains vital to our industry\u2019s health. So, I want to keep it simple. These incentives are investments in local workers and economies. They encourage production in towns and cities nationwide. They enable public officials to say to filmmakers: Bring your stories to our communities. Put down roots and shoot films and build sets and hire crews from our workforce. Make your magic right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 40 states boast these initiatives, and it isn\u2019t hard to understand why. Movie production is a boon to any jurisdiction\u2019s economy. In fact, if you can attract a major motion picture to your state, that\u2019ll translate into a $1.3 million jolt to your economy each day of the shoot. If you can draw studios to your backyard, that\u2019ll drive broadly-based prosperity and fuel job growth. This all stems from an industry that supports more than 2.3 million American jobs and more than 194,000 U.S. businesses and pays salaries that are 64 percent higher than the national average.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means bigger paychecks for a larger cross-section of Americans. That turns into a regular flow of business coming into moviemaking. And that translates into a steadier stream of dollars heading into the pockets of the people who buy tickets to see these stories come alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, some critics have made intentionally misleading claims about the benefits of these programs. But their narrative is shortsighted and ignores the full picture. If anyone wants to see the real-time, positive effects of production, take a trip to New York, where every dollar invested in incentives generates $9 in economic activity. Or Georgia, where that ROI is over $6. Or New Mexico, where it exceeds $8. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s money going into the bank accounts of your neighborhood\u2019s businesses and households. That\u2019s a true win-win-win for theaters, local economies, and the entire creative community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the bottom line: All of us\u2014the MPA, NATO, theater owners, exhibitors, casts, and crews\u2014love movies and the cinematic experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of us believe in the power of film to entertain us, educate us, and take us to new places, worlds, and even galaxies far, far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of us recognize that filmmaking, like our theaters, is a bedrock of economic development and a strong source of growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of us understand what production can, and does, mean for our economies and society: how making a movie creates jobs while also driving training for local students, skills development for local workforces, and tourism for local companies\u2014not to mention how it brings more stories to our screens, more audiences to the box office, and more possibilities to Main Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the reach and impact of storytelling at its best. That\u2019s certainly a message we can all embrace at CinemaCon this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO, Motion Picture Association CinemaCon is one of my favorite moments of the year. It\u2019s a time to celebrate theaters and the cinematic experience. It\u2019s an opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues, exhibitors, studio representatives and creators\u2014to hail everything we love about going to the movies.  As community […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":22042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,22],"tags":[2249,5645,3254],"class_list":["post-37598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition-features","category-from-the-magazine","tag-charles-rivkin","tag-cinemacon-2025","tag-mpa"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}