Economic Adrenaline: How Movie Theaters Drive Local Economies

Open the doors of the Park Theatre in McKenzie, Tenn., a tiny town 130 miles west of Nashville, and it feels like you’re in a haunted house — literally. That’s because the lobby is covered in cobwebs, skeletons and plastic bats, the campy leftovers of Halloween’s Nightmare Theatre, one of many fundraising events meant to help restore this historic 1940s movie house that has been abandoned for the better part of two decades.

On Location in Albuquerque: The Film Industry Drives a Creative and Economic Resurgence

If you ask Ann Lerner when the film industry landed in New Mexico, she’ll say it all began in 1898 with a one-minute silent documentary called “Indian Day School.” Then she’ll laugh and tell you that even though Hollywood has been shooting in the state for more than a century, it wasn’t until 2003 that a rumble erupted into a boom.

Lerner is the film liaison for Albuquerque’s Office of Economic Development, and she’s witnessed firsthand the surge in local film and television productions over the past few years,