Opinion Columnists | Florida moviemaking descends into the Black Lagoon | Fred Grimm

Cinema provided my first glimpse of Florida.

It was 1954. Screams filled the theater. My seven-year-old self watched in transfixed terror as a bug-eyed, human-fish hybrid with an uncanny facial resemblance to Rudy Giuliani emerged from the Black Lagoon — aka Wakulla Springs — for his hot date with Julie Adams.

That iconic scene from “Creature from the Black Lagoon” was reprised in a million children’s nightmares. Until the kids grew up to become the travelers Florida covets.

However non-existent, the scary monster lurking in Wakulla Springs — the movie stand-in for the Amazon River — became as much of an attraction as the spring’s artesian waters. For years, Yankee tourists peered down through glass bottom boats into the depths, ostensibly to see the underwater scenery. But really, it was to reimagine the amphibious monster lurking below.

Other tourists incorporated a quick visit to darkest Africa on their Florida vacation, floating on tour boats past the jungle haunts featured in six Tarzan movies filmed at Wakulla Springs and Silver Springs in the 1940s. (As a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” historic marker attests, Silver Springs was also the location for two Black Lagoon sequels.)

Others visited Silver Springs to see the old dock that had been home base for 155 episodes of the “Sea Hunt” TV series, 1958 to 1961. Or maybe their interest in Silver Springs had to do with the underwater scenes filmed there for two James Bond flicks, “Thunderball” and “Moonraker.”

Tourists don’t seem to mind that the movie and TV characters they sought never existed. This is Florida, where movies have long trumped reality.

The tourist industry has known it since Johnny Weismuller’s wild ape calls echoed across North Florida: Film it and they will come.

But Florida is losing interest. About 30 other states offer tax incentives for production companies to come their way, but not us. The tax breaks are juxtaposed against the considerable money spent on local productions on cast, crew, equipment, food, lodging. Georgia, for example, reported that its incentives generated $4.4 billion from TV and movies filmed there in 2022.

Florida could best that, but the state quit offering tax incentives in 2016. Apparently, the legislature’s Tea Party militants couldn’t bear thinking that Hollywood liberals might be beneficiaries.

Legislators didn’t seem to consider the indirect benefits Hollywood features lend to a state like ours. Moviegoers come away with the illusion that if they spend a week or two down this way, they could experience their own big-screen Florida adventure. The notion has endured since Betty Grable encountered Don Ameche in “Moon Over Miami,” circa 1941. If it happened for Don, it could happen for anyone.

Florida films are shot in exotic locations, sure, but those exotic locations are accessible to anyone with enough money for an airplane ticket and a hotel room. Movie fans can visit the same haunts frequented by the stars in “Body Heat” or “Wild Things,” or ”The Birdcage” or “Get Shorty” or “Caddyshack.”  Anyone with a midsize rental can zoom along MacArthur Causeway, reprising dozens of movie car-chase sequences with the same dazzling Technicolor cityscape reflecting off Biscayne Bay.

Faux gangsters can assume the menacing vibe of “Scarface” on Ocean Drive, though Tony Montana’s digs at the Sun Ray Apartments have been usurped by a Johnny Rockets. Housewives and office managers from the Midwest can race along the same Seven Mile Bridge where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis tangled with terrorists in “True Lies.”

No chamber of commerce tourism campaign could match the multitudes once attracted to Miami by “Miami Vice” or to Fort Lauderdale by “Where the Boys Are.”

Make-believe has become a vital Florida industry.

State lawmakers recognized the value of Florida moviemaking back in 2010, when the Legislature offered a 20-to-30 percent rebate against the cost of filming TV and movie features. The Florida Office of Film and Entertainment reported that over the following three years, $296 million worth of state tax credits nurtured more than 170,000 jobs and $900 million in wages, adding $4.1 billion to Florida’s economy.

But in 2016, the incentive program was allowed to expire. TV and movie projects fled to more generous states, where perversely, they’re still cranking out Florida movies. Just not in Florida. Towns in Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana pretend to be Tampa, Miami and St. Petersburg. The nonprofit Film Florida estimated that since incentives were discarded, the state has lost over 100 major film and television productions. A state that once trailed only California and New York in film productions has now fallen out of the top 20.

It’s getting worse. In July, the state outright abolished the Florida Office of Film and Entertainment, which offered logistical support for production companies.

But it’s more than the money lost when moviemakers abandon the state. It’s as if the very allure of the Florida movies has sunk into a black lagoon.

Fred Grimm, a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale, has worked as a journalist in South Florida since 1976. Reach him by email at or on Twitter: @grimm_fred.