Coming attractions: Five-time Emmy-winning actor Kelsey Grammer will appear and present his latest film Breaking the Bank at the fourth annual Louisiana International Film Festival taking place in Baton Rouge. Grammer stars as Sir Charles Bunbury, the hapless bank chairman who must fend off U.S. and Japanese investments banks seeking to ruthlessly takeover his 200-year-old family bank, according to a news release. The film will be will be presented and will screen at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 15 at Cinemark Perkins Rowe. Tickets and passes can be purchased online.
A piece of the pie: With Louisiana’s film and television production incentives under pressure from the state’s current budget crisis, state Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser is proposing Louisiana extend the incentives to the motion picture industry in return for a promise that taxpayers will share in the profits from any big box office winners, The New York Times reports. While Nungesser thinks his proposal is solid, others aren’t so sure. “It would create a financial proposition that would not be competitive with other states and countries,” Vans Stevenson, the senior vice president for state government affairs at the Motion Picture Association of America, tells The New York Times. Read the full story.
Suit up: U.S. antitrust officials have prepared a lawsuit to stop Halliburton Co. from taking over rival oil services company Baker Hughes Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter.Bloomberg reports the Justice Department plans to file the lawsuit seeking to block the deal as soon as this week, claiming it violates antitrust laws by eliminating competition between the firms, said the person, who asked not to be named because the investigation is confidential. The takeover, valued at $34.6 billion when it was announced in November 2014, would unite the No. 2 and No. 3 oil services firms behind Schlumberger Ltd. Read the full story.
