Hey, Whatever's Cheapest

When it comes to reducing the bottom line, loyalties to particular locations go right out the window. Production companies would rather build Los Angeles in South Africa than shoot in the wallet-reducing City of Angels itself. Countries such as Romania, the Czech Republic, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and even Jordan, with their cheap labor and generous tax incentives, are the U.S.'s primary competitors for film and TV productions.

Just another reason that these days, film tax incentives are necessary and vital for building a local film industry...

Check out some of the set-in-A but shot-in-B films that have been produced recently:

• Cold Mountain was set in the American South, but was filmed in Romania.
  >> Climbing Cold Mountain [Channel4]
  >> Hollywood finds production paradise in Romania [Greatreporter.com, 3/4/05]
  
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the upcoming installment of the quintessentially British Potter series will not shoot in the UK, but in some other cheaper locale, probably in Eastern Europe.
  >> Potter follows Bond to film on foreign shores [Guardian Unlimited, 6/3/05]
  
• The latest James Bond film, Casino Royale, is considering moving from its UK base to Prague's Barrandov Studios.
  >> Casino Royale Shoot Moved to Early 2006 [ComingSoon.net, 5/17/05]
  
• The couldn't-get-more-New-York Honeymooners was shot in Ireland.
  >> Behind 'Honeymooners' [The News & Observer, 6/12/05]
  
• Ask the Dust, an upcoming film directed by Robert Towne and starring Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell, is set in Depression-era Los Angeles, but was shot in Cape Town, South Africa.
  >> Rave reviews, no box-office bang [AP, 5/29/05]