March 28, 1935: Studios threaten Florida move in California tax fight
Call us Hollywood's bargaining chip. California-based film studios fought back against a proposed state income tax by threatening to move their movie making operations here, the St. Petersburg Times reported. "What a bluff!" retorted a California assemblyman. "Have you ever lived in Florida?" said another. But producer Joseph M. Schenck said he was seriously exploring the feasibility of establishing another Hollywood near Coral Gables.
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"In 18 months time, at a lump cost that could be quickly offset by advantages other states offer, every studio could be moved out of California, beyond any question, the way is being paved for that," he said. Of course, Hollywood studios never pulled up stakes and moved to Florida. But studios have come and gone in Florida over the decades and hundreds of movies and television shows have been filmed here. But the dream that Florida could become another Hollywood has never died, and was most grandly acted out with the developments of Disney-MGM and Universal Studios Orlando in the 1980s as combination tourist attractions and actual production facilities. Read the story in the St. Petersburg Times: Californians Wrathful Over Movie Threat