Hollywood on the lake

A few weeks ago, award-winning director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) began filming his latest movie, Stranger than Fiction, at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Keating Sports Center. Designed by Myron Goldsmith, a student of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the gymnasium's geometrical glass and steel design might not seem the most obvious locale for a comedy starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman and Maggie Gyllenhaal. But as Forster explains, "You have to remember, I directed Monster's Ball. If you can picture Will Ferrell in this Mies van der Rohe space, maybe it's as comedic as I can get."

Forster, who had never spent more than a day in Chicago before this year, admits the city's architecture was its primary draw. That, he says, "and it's also very clean, and the Will Ferrell character in the movie is very clean, so it was important to be in a clean city."

Whether for its majestic skyline or stunning sanitation, Chicago is increasingly becoming a destination for major motion pictures again.After a severe two-year slump, in which more than a dozen films set in Chicago were actually shot in Canada and the only prominent major-studio movies shot here were Barbershop and Barbershop 2, the city'senjoying a major resurgence: from Batman Begins's four-week stint in the Loop last year to an influx of new films shooting around town this spring and summer.

According to the Illinois Film Office, film-related spending leapt 200 percent from 2003 to 2004, and the trend continues. "The last time it was this busy was in 1997," says location manager James McAllister, who scouted for Batman and is finishing up several months of work on Il Mare, a sci-fi romance starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

In addition to Il Mare, there's You Are Going to Prison, a low-budget film that's shooting at the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, and Drunk Boat, an independent film starring John Malkovich. Later this summer, scheduled shoots include The Break Up, starring Jennifer Aniston and Chicago's own Vince Vaughn, and Pleading Guilty, a TNT thriller based on Scott Turow's novel. And there'll also be a TV series called Prison Break, which will shoot 12 episodes in Chicago through mid-September for Fox.

Film-industry folks credit the surge to the state's recent tax incentive program. Passed in August 2003, it gives film and TV productions tax credits equal to 25 percent of the wages they pay to Illinois-based cast and crew. "It's really what made Chicago an option," says Il Mare producer Doug Davison, calling from the movie's Maple Lake location near Willow Springs—a $2 million glass-sided house overlooking the water. "Creatively, you always want what's right, but the tax rebate made it pretty comparable to Toronto."

Chicago Film Office honcho Richard Moskal thinks tax breaks aren't the only lure for moviemakers. "On the Batman shoot, the city's cooperation was the greatest incentive of all, helping to get the work done on time and on budget," he says. "That type of resource doesn't have quite the financial spin of a big tax break, but it's just as worthwhile." Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan agrees: "We had the most fantastic time shooting in Chicago," he says. "The city was so good to us."

Moskal also credits the recent bounce to several Chicago-bred filmmakers "who have been elevated to decision-making powers," from Harold Ramis (The Ice Harvest) to the Barbershop team of George Tillman Jr. and Bob Teitel.

"It's never easy," says Teitel of shooting in Chicago, "but we're trying to make it our trademark. For us, it's a comfort zone and I think the movies turn out better. So many people commented on the first Barbershop that it looked like everyone was a having a good time, and you can feel it in Roll Bounce, too," he says, referring to their latest Chicago-set story about roller-skating in the 1970s (opening in September). Chicago's distinct appearance as a kind of everyman's metropolis is also a draw. Teitel says much of the city is "untapped."

Stranger than Fiction's Forster was charmed by Chicago's eclectic neighborhoods. "I really didn't completely get the city at the beginning," he admits. "There was a certain coldness to it, especially downtown. But when you start to explore the outskirts and Bucktown and Wicker Park, you really start to understand the city much better, the livelihood, the emotion. It really gave us this interesting, diverse palette of locations."

Local filmmakers, too, sense the momentum shifting in the right direction. "Our goal, if we can afford it, is to shoot in Chicago or Illinois," says Tim Evans, a producer with Steppenwolf Films, launched two and a half years ago by Steppenwolf Theatre. The fledgling production company hopes to start shooting its first film, a comedy starring Matthew Broderick called Diminished Capacity, late this summer.

With more cities (and countries) offering cost-reducing measures, including waiving sales tax, cutting rebate checks and providing inexpensive labor, the race to be the cheapest is on. "We're getting pushed to shoot in Louisiana and Canada, but we're fighting hard to avoid that," Evans says. "Chicago has been very, very good to us and it's an intricate part of our identity, but the struggle comes down to the bottom line."