Justice League Mortal is the film everyone is talking about and its not even in cinemas, yet-
Background:
A new tax incentive for Australian producers has been introduced, its called the Tax Offset (formally the Tax Rebate) and it provides up to a 40% Offset of budget of the film, which goes to the Producer. Like all incentives this one comes with its Red Tape. On this occasion a film must qualify under QAPE (Qualifying Australian Production Expenditure) to be able to access the Offset. This means that when a film is submitted, to the powers that be, a panel of assessors decide if the film is Australian 'enough' and if it is, then it gets the tick of approval. If not? Then find another country to film in with better tax breaks or change the script.
The Situation:
Justice League Mortal now sits in production limbo as, rumour has it, the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) rejected the producers preliminary request for the 40% Offset. So the question remains, are an Australian director, some key cast and crew enough to be an Australian Film? Or does the story have to be about a man cooking 'shrimp' on a Barbie in the outback? In today’s times, when filmmaking is becoming an increasingly global phenomenon the question is asked, what is an Australian film? And does an industry, that seems to be all but fading away, have the capacity to let such an investment go?
Well, on Wednesday, Dr. George Miller (director of Justice League) gave an impassioned response when interviewed by Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National about why he feels Justice League Mortal should receive the Offset.
There is an audio file of the interview and an interesting write up in The Sydney Morning Herald.
What do you think?
Want to know more about Justice League the comic? Find out here.
-Andrew.
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1 comment:
Belated is fine.
Angry is good.
Opinionated is what we love!
Thanks for the comment Toby.
It looks like it was all too much for the studio anyways. Click here for the article
According to reports, Justice League has been "tabled". I can only assume it was because they could not get a definite yes from the FFC.
Also, there are also a few other restrictions with the producer offset (not just the million dollar cap) including cinema releases and so forth. Read the full guidelines here
Supposedly the reason for the $1M cap Toby is to allow smaller budget films to get better access to grant money from Screen Australia as they would now not have to provide said grant money to films over a million dollars as those films would be getting the offset.
What do you think of that?
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