According to the Internet Movie Database, Gavin’s Way and The House of Usher were the only two movies in its gargantuan inventory filmed in Newburyport.
I say we can do better.
Over the past six months, just a few blockbuster-quality movies that were seen shooting in and around Boston included Pink Panther 2 (starring Steve Martin and John Cleese), My Best Friend’s Girl (starring Kate Hudson and Alec Baldwin), and 21 (starring Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne). If it wasn’t for the state legislature for passing tax incentives in 2005-06, and to Robin Dawson and her Massachusetts Film Office, these films may have been shot elsewhere.
When Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, and Bette Midler arrived in Georgetown (some 15 miles away from here) on a fall’s day in September 2007, the local newspaper reported nobody knew the big stars were in town.
Tom Salemi recently proposed the benefit of a regionally-focused economic development director. While my gut instinct is to say that is the role of the Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council, even the MVEDC wouldn’t necessarily be involved in bringing the next Tom Cruise film to Newburyport. So, who would do the wooing? Not a state representative, for the question would be asked why single out Newburyport and not Amesbury or Salisbury?
My point is when you consider last summer’s New York Post ran a story about Plum Island and the boutique hotel, blue, is it really that far-fetched to run some fancy advertising, whether locally or regionally, and proposition that the next time New York celebrities head to Newbury, that they stop off in the Clipper City, stroll the river boardwalk, eat at a Tannery restaurant, gawk at the High Street Federalist houses, and begin spreading the word about the next great place to make a movie?
I never heard of those two IMDb movies previously shot here. We can do better.
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