The Franklin Park Zoo, locked in a funding struggle with the Patrick administration, is going Hollywood to raise money.
A movie starring Kevin James as a zookeeper who talks to the animals is scheduled to start filming at the zoo next month. Officials say the zoo will be identified as the Franklin Park Zoo of Boston in the movie and will net $325,000 in fees for serving as a Hollywood backlot.
Negotiations for the movie project began back in March, before Patrick vetoed $4 million in funding for the Franklin Park Zoo and the Stone Zoo in Stoneham. Zoo officials say the movie project is part of an effort to reduce the zoo’s reliance on state funding.
The zoos requested $6.5 million in state funding for the current fiscal year, less than the $6.65 million they received last year following several emergency cuts totaling $400,000. Patrick vetoed $4 million of the funding and the Legislature is considering an override of the veto.
Zoo officials say attendance and memberships are up, but they won’t be able to survive unless the Legislature overrides the governor’s $4 million veto. Zoo officials say some of their animals will have to be euthanized if the money is not restored; Gov. Patrick has insisted the zoos would not have to close and no animals would be euthanized.
The movie’s financial payment to the Franklin Park Zoo shows one of the benefits of the state’s film tax credit, which offers producers a 25 percent tax credit for virtually every dollar they spend in the state. The tax credits, which can be converted into cash by selling them back to the state or to third parties with tax liabilities in Massachusetts, have drawn lots of movie producers to the area.
Over the last three years, the state has issued $167 million in film tax credits, which have induced movie and TV producers to spend a total of $676 million here, according to a recent Revenue Department report. Much of the money went to non-Massachusetts residents. The report said producers paid a total of $429 million in wages to 1,876 people. Massachusetts residents held roughly 40 percent of the jobs but received only 18 percent of the wages. Nonresidents pocketed most of the money, with 37 actors, directors, and producers receiving $177 million, or 41 percent of the total.
Zoo officials say the fact that the zoo in the film will be known as the Franklin Park Zoo should attract visitors to the zoo and boost Boston tourism.
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