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Film highlights lack of movie making in Missouri

This weekend's number one movie, "Identity Thief" is partially set in St. Louis, but it wasn't filmed here.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KSDK)- This weekend's number one movie, "Identity Thief" is partially set in St. Louis, but it wasn't filmed here.

Missouri's film office closed in 2011 after Governor Nixon vetoed a bill that would have continued funding the office. The state of Missouri also made cutbacks on film tax incentives used to recruit out of state filmmakers.

While "Identity Thief", staring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy features St. Louis, the entire production was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kim Tucci runs the St. Louis film office. He says there is one major reason why St. Louis was out of the running, "they didn't get any tax credits. Forget about it. If they get tax credits they come here. They may have done the whole movie here."

The George Clooney film 'Up in the Air' was one of the most recent movies filmed in St Louis.

"At that time we had 4.5 million dollars in tax credits and they were able to get 4.1 million for 'Up in the Air,'" said Tucci.

He says the movie created about 200 jobs, and an economic impact of nearly 60 million dollars.

Jack Snyder is a film director and writer born and raised in St. Louis and always tries to keep his projects local.

His first feature film was "Ghost Image." It was produced in 2006 in downtown St. Louis.

But, when it came to his next film, a suspense-thriller, called 'Fatal Call' he chose a different state.

"Since we figured the tax credit would be a major decision on where we shot it we were pursuing tax credits in Missouri, Louisiana, and Illinois and Louisiana and Illinois responded very quickly and enthusiastically about us shooting there. We ultimately chose Illinois," said Snyder.

Snyder says he hopes to continue making films in St Louis.

"I certainly hope Missouri starts giving out the film tax credit the way they were back in 2006 and I think if that were to happen we would end up with film production probably all year long like we did then," said Snyder.

Tucci says he hopes the legislature will extend those tax credits then he will have to lobby the governor's office to release them to help bring another movie to the area.

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