Mayor’s Minute By Stewart Welch III - March 2023

Hollywood stars walking the streets of Mountain Brook? Who would have thought that could happen?

In the past several months, we have had three movies filmed in our city. Hollywood director Jordan Ross (“Jerry Maguire” and “Thumper”) filmed “The Tutor” starring Garrett Hedlund (“Troy” with Brad Pitt), Noah Schnapp (“Abe”) and Victoria Justice (“A Perfect Pairing”) in two homes in Mountain Brook. Hallmark also filmed a movie in a Mountain Brook home. And recently, a sci-fi movie was filmed at Slim’s Pizzeria in Crestline Village.

Hollywood has moved out of California and has, largely, re-based in Georgia and Louisiana due to financial incentives offered by those states. Alabama offers about $20 million in incentives annually, which makes our state an attractive destination for smaller film projects. According to our secretary of the Department of Commerce, Greg Canfield, $1 of incentives returns $7 of spending within our state. I and others are working with our state legislative leaders, Senator Dan Roberts and House Member David Faulkner, to increase our incentive package because once our incentives run out, producers move to another state (Georgia has unlimited incentives). These film projects produce jobs and revenue for our state, region and city.

There are at least two ways you can get involved. First, if you feel you have a unique filming location, you can register that location so that future producers know about it. This could be a home, church, farm, barn … anything you feel is unique. And yes, producers pay you for use of your property, plus it is just fun to watch a film crew at work.

“We were fortunate to have both ‘The Tutor’ and the Hallmark movie filmed in our home,” said Mountain Brook resident Sara McDonald. “It was such a great experience for our family, especially our kids, to see the hard work that goes into making a movie. We all enjoyed meeting the cast and crew members from all over.”

“I was honored that the production chose Slim’s to be featured as a location in their film,” said Miller Mobley, owner of Slim’s. “It means a lot to me because of my intention and desire to make Slim’s a place that resonates with our guests from a culinary perspective and design sensibility. I also feel the community should be proud that we have substantial film productions choosing our beautiful neighborhood as their backdrop.”

If interested in registering a location property, visit www.FilmBirmingham.org and click on “Locations.”

Second, if you would like to be in a film, you can sign up at the same website and click on “For Locals.’ Film extras also get paid. I was an extra back in the 70s for a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sally Fields, Jeff Bridges and Fannie Flagg called “Stay Hungry.” We had fun watching how a movie was made and meeting Schwarzenegger and Bridges.