Maine likes film! It's official

From the West End News this morning -- GOOD NEWS!!!

Filmmaking Bill Passes Tax Committee
Friday, May 15, 2009

The Visual Media Productions bill - LD 1449 - which would give filmmakers more incentive to make their films in Maine, passed the Taxation Committee on May 14th with a unanimous “Ought to Pass” vote. The bill now heads to the House and Senate.

The film version of "Bag of Bones" by Stephen King is hoping to film in Maine this summer - if the bill is passed and the incentives are attractive enough. It is set in Maine, the director & producer want to film it here, and King wants it shot here.
"Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout just won the Pulitizer Prize for fiction, and it is set in a Maine town. The last Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel set in Maine, "Empire Falls," was made into an HBO film, and it was the last big feature film production shot in Maine, in 2003.

Other films shot in Maine include Message In A Bottle (1999), starring Kevin Costner, Paul Newman, and Robin Wright Penn. A 130-year-old house at 97 Danforth Street, just down the street from Victoria Mansion, was remodeled and used in the movie as Penn's Chicago townhome.

The skating scene in the movie The Preacher's Wife (1996), starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston, was filmed on the pond in Deering Oaks Park in Portland.

[Source]

Photo from IMDB.