CANTON – Mississippi Film Studios will be in private hands after a leasing deal between the Madison County Economic Development Authority (MCEDA) and Mad Genius Inc. CEO Rick Moore was recently finalized.
Multiple media reports claimed Mississippi Film Studios was sold to Moore, but MCEDA Executive Director Tim Coursey said on Tuesday the county still has the deed to the property and is simply leasing the space.
Moore will pay $8,000 per month for the 43,000 square-foot facility, the same amount the Canton Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and Film Office was paying in a previous lease agreement. This includes a 35,000 square-foot sound stage and 8,000 square feet of office space on 31 acres of land.
Coursey said the lease is for five years with a renewal clause built in.
Moore is founder and CEO of Mad Genius Inc., an advertising agency based in Ridgeland, as well as Eyevox Entertainment LLC., one of the largest production studios in the state.
Jo Ann Gordon, executive director of Canton CVB, said this deal accomplishes what they had set out to do from the beginning, which was to get the studio in private hands.
“What we’re hoping and knowing can happen with private being involved in it is they can grow this complex by leaps and bounds by attracting other vendors and private companies in concert with them,” she said. “Public doesn’t need to be doing that – it needs to be private.”
Jerry Lousteau, owner of WMGO Radio in Canton and the newest appointee to the Canton CVB seven-member board of commissioners, said the deal is great for both taxpayers and the film industry.
“It’s great to have this thing in the hands of private business entrepreneurs instead of on the ticket of the taxpayers,” he said. “That was the goal all along of the Film Commission and the City of Canton.”
Lousteau has been critical of the studio in the past due to the costs that city taxpayers were paying for.
“There was a good amount of utilities, maintenance, upkeep – all of that is now off the taxpayers’ ticket,” he said.
Gordon said the money spent leasing and maintaining the facility will now go towards programs, such as workforce development and the young filmmakers program.
“That’s our focus,” she said. “We’re interested in the programatic side. We’re the economic developers.”
Also, she said there was another 24 acres of land they eventually want to develop.
Originally built in 1995 for the filming of “A Time to Kill,” the facility was purchased by MCEDA after the movie wrapped production and later expanded with Katrina funds, among other sources.
An aluminum manufacturer once leased the space before it was later converted back to a film studio. It had been leased to Canton CVB for the last five years.
Lousteau estimates nearly $8 million spent on the facility, with money coming from grants and other funding sources.
One particular grant had been the topic of discussion by city officials as of late because stipulations had not been met and the clock was ticking before the grant would have to be repaid.
“This was state money that came after Hurricane Katrina,” Lousteau said. “It was Katrina redevelopment money designed to help people recover.”
He said the city was required to verify 35 full-time jobs and had two years left to do so, but Lousteau is confident the recent lease agreement will satisfy that obligation.
“This topic has been widely discussed by the grant writers, mayor and aldermen and film commissioners,” he said.
Coursey said he believes the employment stipulation was fulfilled last week once the ink was dry on the lease deal and production began on a new film in Canton.
The movie, “Same Kind of Different As Me,” an adaptation of a 2006 New York Times bestselling novel, will be filming in October as crews have already begun work at the facility.
The book is about an ex-con drifter who crosses paths with a Dallas art dealer and the story of their intersecting paths.
Little is known about who is producing and starring in the film, although in 2009, Samuel L. Jackson was reported to have one of the leading roles.
