Battle: La.

Celtic Media Centre held a ribbon-cutting ceremony today. The studio will host the cast and crew of Battle: Los Angeles, a sci-fi action film from Columbia Pictures that stars Aaron Eckhart as a Marine leading the human resistance against an alien invasion. Battle is the first big-budget studio film that Celtic has attracted to its new campus. As such, the movie is both a bittersweet success for O’Connor’s son, Michael—who stepped in to oversee the facility after his father died last year—and instant validation of the state legislature’s decision last session to increase tax credits for film production from 25% to 30% and to make the incentives permanent. Until now, Celtic could have been compared to the Shaw Center for the Arts in its first year. The gorgeous Third Street facility seemed woefully underutilized in 2005. The same year that saw Brendan O’Connor—an entrepreneur with a maritime background—fall in love with the movie industry and purchase the buildings and property surrounding Master P’s never-completed recording studio also saw critics call the Shaw Center a pretty-looking jewel box without any jewelry. Soon, though, the Manship Theatre, Brunner Gallery, LSU School of Art gallery, the LSU Museum of Art and restaurants like Tsunami made the Shaw Center a lively success. Now O’Connor’s Celtic Media Centre has done the same. Read the cover story in this month’s 225 magazine by clicking here.