Diversifying our economy

In Louisiana we're expanding from obscene public subsidies for oil exploration into obscene public subsidies for movies about oil exploration. 

The movie “Deepwater Horizon,” which opens today in theaters across America, is a rare example of a locally shot film that actually tells a story set in Louisiana.

It's gotten kudos for its meticulous rendering of the events leading up to the 2010 explosion that took the lives of 11 men on a BP oil rig 50 miles off the coast, setting off the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

But it is also the most expensive film ever made in the state, at least from taxpayers’ perspective. Under the state’s generous film-subsidy program, Louisiana issued tax credits totaling almost $38 million to Lionsgate, the producer.

That sum eclipses what was given to the previous record-holder, “Green Lantern.” In 2011, the year of that film’s release, the box-office flop got slightly more state aid than the University of New Orleans did.

First we pay for them to make the disasters happen. Then we pay for them to profit by exploiting the fact of the disaster. I'd say, at least the latter half is ostensibly "greener," but since we still subsidize oil production too, it's more like they're getting us coming and going.

Update: Clay saw the movie and reviewed it for us.