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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Production of the DreamWorks' time-travel thriller "Glimmer," starring Jeremy Allen White, has been postponed. It had been expected to start shooting soon in Pittsburgh.

"We are pushing production on 'Glimmer' until next year because of our actors' schedules. And until we have a start date, we don't know where we'll shoot, but Pittsburgh would remain one of our options," a studio spokesperson said.

The story follows teens who discover a portal to the past but when one of them changes history, the effects tragically snowball.

"We're very disappointed that DreamWorks is not able to move forward with their production of 'Glimmer' at this time. We've made two feature films with DreamWorks in the past and expect to be working with them again in the future," Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, said.

By Thomas Olson / Tribune-Review

Shadyside resident and actress Delilah Picart spent 18 days filming scenes in Pittsburgh as a sniper shooting victim in "Jack Reacher" in late 2011 and got paid $18,000.

"I made more money on this job than at the temp job I had in Pittsburgh working for four months in 2011," said Picart, 32, who played in the movie starring Tom Cruise.

She credits the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credits program for her earnings. Supporters say it attracts filmmaking projects to Pennsylvania that otherwise would film elsewhere.

Pennsylvania caps annual tax credits at $60 million a year, but the amount often gets exhausted within about three months. Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, introduced a bill to raise the annual cap to $100 million.

Chris Breakwell, the CEO of 31st Street Studios,
left, talks with Randall Baumberger, president
of The Studios at Paramount

By Maria Sciullo / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The subject of film tax credits is pure Hollywood but hardly one for the starry-eyed.

Production companies base their shooting locations on a variety of factors -- whether the studio or location is suitable, the reputation of the local trade crews and past working relationships among them.

But it's the tax credit that really sweetens the pot, in many cases making the difference between shooting in Western Pennsylvania or elsewhere.

"If there was no tax credit, I would never have been able to film the entire movie in Pittsburgh the way I wanted to," said Upper St. Clair native Stephen Chbosky, who directed the highly acclaimed 2012 film "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." Mr. Chbosky wrote the screenplay from his YA novel of the same name.

" 'Perks' was such a personal story to me, and it was so important to film the whole thing authentically in Pittsburgh. "It meant the world to do so."

Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, joined colleagues from around the state April 17 when she spoke before the joint Senate and House Democratic Policy committees in Harrisburg.

In her report, she noted that more than $475 million has been brought into the southwestern Pennsylvania economy since the tax program was implemented in 2007. That figure, she said, represents numbers provided by production managers and line producers.

They argued that $60 million for the state's film tax credit budget is woefully insufficient and that Pennsylvania is losing projects to other, better-funded states.

Read more: Pittsburgh Film Office hopes tax plea will bring more movie production

Pittsburgh native and CMU grad Zachary Quinto appeared on NBC's TODAY show this morning to talk about his upcoming movie, Star Trek Into Darkness. Quinto plays Spock in the movie, which will be released May 17.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Zachary Quinto was raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. He attended Central Catholic High School and graduated in 1995. He went on to attend Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama and graduated in 1999. He has appeared on numerous television series since 2000. His first role in feature film was in "Star Trek" (2009) as Spock.

His acting credits include "Star Trek," "Heroes," "American Horror Story," "Margin Call" and others.
For a full listing click here.

By Tim Schooley / Pittsburgh Business Times

DreamWorks, the Hollywood studio led by entertainment industry heavyweights Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, is gearing up to bring another film production project to the Pittsburgh region.

According the trade publication reports and state records, the Hollywood-based film production company is looking to shoot a project called "Glimmer" in the Pittsburgh area.

When the film will start shooting remains to be seen.

The Internet Movie Database and Variety both report the sci-fi thriller is expected to begin shooting in the first half of this year.

State records indicate that what looks to be a subsidiary of the production company called DreamWorks II Production Co. LLC has been granted a state tax credit for $5,444,255.

By Rob Owen / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburghers take notice whenever Heinz is mentioned on "Mad Men," and it has been many times in recent seasons. Now there's a former Pittsburgher writing for "Mad Men," although the Heinz mentions began before his arrival.

Shadyside native Tom Smuts joined the "Mad Men" writing staff for the show's current, sixth season (10 p.m. Sundays, AMC), and he co-wrote last Sunday's episode, "The Flood," with series creator Matthew Weiner. The episode was set against the backdrop of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Smuts, a 1984 graduate of Oakland's Central Catholic High School, broke into TV writing with the Pittsburgh-set 2001-04 CBS drama "The Guardian." After that he wrote on CBS's 2005-07 series "Close to Home." Then the writers' strike happened, and Mr. Smuts didn't land another staff writer job but contributed scripts to "The Good Wife" and "Memphis Beat." He also wrote a pilot for HBO about Texas heart surgeons; "Mad Men" boss Matthew Weiner read that script and hired Mr. Smuts, 46, to write for his show.

Tom Sizemore--will be filming here in September

By Barbara Vancheri / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A recent People magazine story about Tom Sizemore was headlined: "I've Come Out the Other Side." Now, the other side -- of addiction and "Celebrity Rehab" -- is leading the actor to Pittsburgh where he will star in a new movie, "Mob Priest" alongside Robert Davi.

Mr. Sizemore, whose credits include "Heat," "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down," tells his story in a new book, "By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There."

Gavin Rapp and Ron Hankison, who shared directing duties on "Since I Don't Have You," are starting this new project, "Mob Priest" also featuring Ken Champion, Sean Derry, Kristin Spatafore, Buster Maxwell, Tim Yurkewicz and Zack Meekins.

They plan to start shooting the $3 million movie, set in Pittsburgh, in September in Pittsburgh locations such as the North Side, Lawrenceville and Downtown, but will have their leading men in town next week to scout locations and shoot publicity shots.

A site has been launched at themobpriest.com where you can find a description.

Robert Downey Jr., left, and director
Shane Black on the set of "Iron Man 3."
(Zade Rosenthal / Marvel Entertainment)

By Gina McIntyre / LA Times

By mid-April, "Iron Man 3" was beginning to look like the surest of sure things. Three weeks before the film was to arrive in U.S. theaters, early reviews and box-office tracking suggested that the latest installment in the adventures of Robert Downey Jr.'s charming superhero Tony Stark might rival or even surpass the $2-billion success of last summer's hit "The Avengers."

But on a Monday afternoon just days before "Iron Man 3" was set to premiere in London, the film's director and co-writer, Shane Black, wasn't taking anything for granted.

"If the movie's a huge hit, I'll pump my fist in anticipation of the fact that I'm still viable," Black said, sitting on a rolling chair in a dusty, sparsely furnished office at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. "The fact that I have a chance to come in and do a job that other people would sell their left arm for is not something that escapes me."

Coming from another director, the modesty might ring false. But Black, 51, understands the fickle nature of movie fame as well as anyone.

The Pittsburgh native sold his first script for $250,000 at the age of 23. "Lethal Weapon" announced him as a singular talent whose gift for pairing kinetic repartee with eye-popping spectacle reinvented the modern action film.

For the next decade, Black remained one of the mostly highly paid, sought-after writers in Hollywood, commanding top dollar for screenplays including 1991's "The Last Boy Scout" and 1993's "Last Action Hero." His streak ended when 1996's "The Long Kiss Goodnight" bottomed out at the box office.

By then, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Williamson arrived with their own brand of chatty, violent, postmodern genre movies, and Black faded from view.

Read more: 'Iron Man 3': Shane Black returns Tony Stark to 'real world'

"Foreign Letters"

By Barb Vancheri / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The eighth annual Silk Screen Film Festival will stretch its gala and opening film across two nights, screen 31 features and two shorts (one Oscar-nominated) and add a new venue to its lineup this year.

The Asian-American film festival, a showcase of Asian films and filmmakers with origins in Asian cultures, will kick off May 10 with a gala at the Rivers Club at One Oxford Centre, Downtown.

VIP tickets are $150 and will include access to a reception from 7 to 8:30 p.m., with standard gala tickets, $100, providing food, beverages, entertainment and more.

As previously announced, the opening film will be "Midnight's Children" directed by Deepa Mehta and showing at 4:30 p.m. May 11 at the Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Ave.

Drew Seeley and Chelsea Kane in 'Lovestruck: The Musical.'

By Alice T. Carter / Pittsburgh Tribune Review

When actress Sara Paxton learned she had been cast in a movie set in a Tuscan villa, she thought she was finally going to see Italy.

"Then they said: 'We're flying you to Pittsburgh,' " she recalls. "I would have loved Italy. But I got to spend two months in Pittsburgh."

Executive producer Debra Martin Chase chose locations in and around Pittsburgh to stand in for New York City and Italy in the film "Lovestruck: The Musical," which was shot here in the fall of 2011 with the working title "Elixir."

"We looked at a lot of different places, and Pittsburgh made a lot of sense," says Chase, who had not previously been to Pittsburgh. "There were some practical reasons -- the favorable tax initiatives, the good crew base. We shot in the fall, so climate, the look of the terrain and finally finding a great house. ... It was very much about the aesthetic, the feel."

The film will have its premiere at 8 p.m. April 21 on the ABC Family channel.