FREAKY DEAKY, one of Elmore Leonard’s comedy crime capers, will film in the author’s native Detroit – the first of his 14 novels adapted for the movies to be shot entirely in Michigan.
Produced by director/writer Charles Matthau of L.A.-based Matthau Company, and starring William H. Macy and Camilla Belle, Freaky Deaky was approved for a $2.8 million incentive on a $6.9 million of projected in-state expenditures. It’s expected to hire 235 Michigan workers.
The movie is based on Elmore’s bestseller and follows the exploits of a former group of ‘60s radicals when they meet again in 1974.
Freaky Deaky is the eighth project approved under the $25 million film incentives cap, which the legislature approved last week. Most of that cap has been exhausted, as 10 projects so fr in 2011 were approved with $15,852,419 in incentives awarded on $38,197,616 of approved production.
MUSKEGON’S PROPOSED MOVIE STUDIO in WaterMark Center, in what had been Shaw-Walker’s office furniture manufacturing plant, appears to be getting underway, despite the loss of Michigan’s top tier incentives.
Plans to build a $60 million production facility were unveiled by Sarah Rooks, president of Watermark Center and WaterMark developer and CEO, Moses Gross of ANM Group of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Ground-breaking for the first phase, a build-out of 250,000-sq. ft., is expected by the end of this year and completed by 2012. The studio will include three sound studios with 52-ft. high ceilings.
WaterMark Center’s redevelopment began in 2005 with the construction of loft condominiums. In 2008, after Michigan introduced its incentives, a film studio was added to the development project.
THE WATERFRONT FILM FESTIVAL will screen 70-plus features, docs and shorts, including a number of Midwest premieres, at the 13th annual event, June 9-12, in Saugatuck, a favorite summer vacation destination for Chicagoans.
In conjunction with the festival, the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council will meet 1une 10, from 10 a.m. to noon, Saugatuck Brewing Company, 2948 Blue Star Highway in Douglas.
