Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker was at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank on Tuesday to promote the states’s generous 30% credit film incentives, and, naturally, the conversation turned to “The Bear.”
“When you watch ‘The Bear,’ I love that you get the feel of what it’s like to live in and be in Chicago,” the Democratic governor said of the FX series, which is one of seven shows currently filming in the city.
He admitted he hasn’t met the award-winning stars yet, but is setting up a dinner with them at Gibson’s Steakhouse to make up for the time a host failed to recognize Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri.
As White told Jimmy Kimmel on a recent appearance, the show has been so wildly popular, he assumed he had an in at every Chicago restaurant. “Sometimes we get a little too confident,” the actor admitted. “Like in Chicago, I feel like we’re good anywhere. It should be fine.”
But when he and Edebiri dropped by Gibson’s without a reservation during filming of the show’s second season, the staff was unimpressed.
“Ayo and I went up to the host and said, ‘Hey, it’s us, it’s us… we’re good, right?’” the actor said, expecting to be led to a table for two. Instead, they were told it would be an hour and a half wait. “We were like, ‘Very good!’ and we took a walk. No shade to Gibson’s,” said White.
Pritzker said when he heard the story, “I immediately called up his manager and the show’s producer and I said, ‘I want to invite all the cast. We’re going to host them at Gibson’s.’ Because, let’s face it, they’re kind of hometown favorites.”
The governor said a date for the Gibsons’s dinner hasn’t been set yet, but is in the works.
“The incentives have been very helpful at attracting new production. Since I became governor, we extended the tax credits to 10 years so they go to 2032. And we expanded them as well, so there’s some above the line coverage for tax credits,” said Pritzker.
A January Economic Impact Study of the Illinois Film Production Services Tax Credit found that their tax credit motivated 93.5% of productions filmed in the state. And that for every dollar the state spent on the tax credit, nearly $7 was generated.
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