The New York Times has a business-page profile of Peter Chernin, Rupert Murdoch's former no. 2 who is now a successful independent movie producer. Toward the bottom comes this:
Ms. Topping and Mr. Chernin declined to reveal the "Exodus" budget. A person with knowledge of the costs, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private information, put the film's budget at $200 million, but said numerous government incentives brought the net production cost to roughly $140 million.
At $60 million, those are some "government incentives"! Mr. Chernin earned $34 million in 2008, his last full year at News Corp., and his severance deal included "use of a corporate jet for 50 hours a year," the Times reported back in 2009.
The Times doesn't say whether the "government incentives" are federal, state, or local. Where are the politicians who will denounce "government incentives" for rich Hollywood producers and movie stars? If these incentives went away, would people stop making movies? It would be a fine topic for some additional journalistic inquiry.