Breaking Dawn Bringing Millions to Baton Rouge Economy

From Examiner.com:

Ever since the announcement that part of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Parts 1 & 2 would be filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there has been a general expectation that the area would see a financial upswing from production.

For instance, in August 2010 (note that the locations were confirmed in July) a local news station, WBRZ, heralded: “An economic boom is on the way to Baton Rouge because of the fascination with ‘Twilight.’”

How right they were . . . probably to the point of surpassing most peoples’ wildest expectations.

It’s hard to tell, though, since most anticipations surrounding Breaking Dawn’s production in Baton Rouge didn’t come in the form of an exact figure. This is about as specific as it got (from the LSU Reveille):

“The production's prolonged presence in Baton Rouge will be advantageous for local crew members who will have work for as long as the project is in the city . . . ‘Breaking Dawn’ will be an ‘enormous boost’ to Baton Rouge's economy through set building and production work, as well as the stimulus of cast and crew who stay in hotels and eat in local restaurants. ‘There is a constant multiplication on the dollars the production is spending in our community," she said. As the ‘Breaking Dawn’ production swoops into Baton Rouge, the city also has a chance to promote itself by offering local haunts for members of the production to sink their teeth into.”

Well, a local Louisiana news channel, WAFB, has released some numbers, and it seems that in 2010 alone, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn’s production brought in around $65.5 million dollars to the city. It is expected that as production comes to a close this year, Breaking Dawn will have brought in another $33 million to Baton Rouge.

So that’d, in total, be about $100 million that the city and its businesses and workers earned from housing production on these two films for the span of a few months. If an “economic boom” is what Baton Rouge hoped for, wish granted.