Why Matt Damon as Eliot Ness May Be Bad News for Ohio

Here's a pretty significant foundation for a movie disguised as political news: The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Ohio may lose a $100 million film production to neighboring Michigan if certain incentives aren't met to keep the film in the Buckeye state.

Incentives are a big deal these days; just ask Jon Favreau, who wants California to remain competitive with other states by offering studios tax breaks to shoot more in the movie capital of the world. Seems strange, but when you consider that more and more domestic and international locations are now being used instead of California, Favreau has a point.

So, too, does Ivan Schwarz of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission, who finds himself in a fight to keep a major motion picture out of Michigan, which has passed incentives - the largest in the country, in fact, at a 40% rebate. Here's the movie: Torso, based on Cleveland's unsolved Kingsbury Run murders from the mid-1930s. Matt Damon is slated to star as Eliot Ness in the film, which Paramount is targeting as a high eight- to low nine-figure production. That's a pretty cool flick, no matter where they shoot it. Of course, Cleveland makes perfect sense, but Paramount simply can't do it if they can slash their physical costs while on location by nearly half. The other odd note here is that David Fincher attached to direct Torso, which is an adaptation of the graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko. But based on what we've heard this week about Paramount's reaction to the early cut of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Fincher's defection from Paramount to Sony with Heavy Metal on the heels of those discussions, you have to think there might be a shake-up in the director's chair. After all, Fincher's Zodiac didn't make anybody rich, and Button is a huge gamble, even with Brad Pitt. If that movie doesn't hit its numbers, this whole project might go a different direction. In the meantime, Ohio will race like hell to try to put together an offer, but according to The Plain Dealer, it looks like moving along the measure that would kick in some incentives won't happen in this legislative session. That means January at the earliest for financing, and Paramount may not want to sit around that long. Ideally, it would be shot in Cleveland, with Fincher and Damon, and with Paramount controlling the purse strings and nothing else. Clearly, it's not a perfect world or there would be no wave of unsolved murders in Ohio to make a movie about in the first place.