"A grand studio dream runs headlong into reality; For Plymouth Rock team, money woes, questions crowding out hopes
This story was reported and written by the Globe Spotlight Team, reporters Scott Allen and Marcella Bombardieri and editor Thomas Farragher.
One wonders when they shut this one off and forget to mention it in future articles promoting the product as they have all along.
David P. Kirkpatrick seemed to relish the role of big-shot Hollywood insider as he briefed state development officials about his bold plan to challenge Tinseltown at its own game.
And the former head of Paramount Motion Pictures certainly sounded like the right man to build a huge movie and TV studio in Massachusetts. He talked about how he helped bring “Forrest Gump’’ to life. He casually referred to Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston as “the kids.’’
By the time Kirkpatrick left that first meeting in August 2006, state officials were practically ready to break out the champagne, according to two people who were there. A few months later, the state dangled the prospect of more than $100 million in tax breaks and other benefits to Kirkpatrick’s team.
So began one of the most buzz-generating projects in recent state history, a $650 million plan to build 14 sound stages and a virtual entertainment city in the woods of Plymouth, making Massachusetts the production center for countless movies and TV shows. Plymouth officials have scrambled to help Plymouth Rock Studios create the 2,000 studio-related jobs the company predicts, while people mobbed job fairs to chase their dream of making it in show business.
But a look behind the breathtaking vision of Plymouth Rock Studios reveals a project marred by over-the-top claims, broken promises, legal infighting, and the chronic lack of one crucial ingredient: money.
Just as ALL THESE LOSERS the state throws HARD-EARNED TAX DOLLARS at while SLASHING SERVICES! And they wonder why we are angry?!!
A Globe Spotlight Team investigation has found that, despite their cultivated image of Hollywood know-how and deep pockets, Kirkpatrick and his oft-changing cast of partners never obtained nearly the resources to build one of the world’s biggest studios. Members of Kirkpatrick’s group have been sued at least 11 times in the past three years by writers, investors, consultants, and others who say they weren’t fully paid. Kirkpatrick and his various collaborators were so desperate for funds that they turned to dubious sources for help, including a convicted embezzler and an obscure Florida financier whose former business partners were recently sentenced to prison.
Among the Spotlight Team’s findings:
■ Kirkpatrick’s own backstory goes way beyond what he publicly shared with Plymouth townspeople. He lost virtually all of his wealth over the last decade. On the day that he shared celebrity gossip with Massachusetts officials, he was going through a painful personal bankruptcy in Los Angeles and had given up his mansion for a small rented house in a working-class neighborhood. The once-powerful Paramount executive had been reduced to making small-time videos - “Merry Christmas Babies’’ sold 23 copies - and relying on a loan from his mother in Worcester to make ends meet, court records show.
■ It’s not clear whether Kirkpatrick’s team even owns the studio project. Kirkpatrick’s former partners in the sprawling Plymouth plan - a group of prominent businessmen who hoped to use films to project their Christian faith - allege in a 2008 lawsuit in Los Angeles that he stole the proposal from them during a time that they were in financial distress. The group, called Good News Holdings, had set up a field office in Plymouth, but, when Good News ran out of money, Kirkpatrick split and formed a new studio company. Plymouth Rock officials deny wrongdoing, but, in materials for potential investors, they warn that they may face more lawsuits over ownership of the studio.
■ Kirkpatrick tried to buy out his Good News partners and finance the studio plan with money from an investor who had recently served four years in prison for embezzlement. Kirkpatrick said he did not know that George Thomas Bobbitt had confessed to stealing money from his clients. But Kirkpatrick helped keep Bobbitt’s identity a secret for some time - describing Bobbitt to his partners as a man who wanted to remain anonymous - making it difficult for others to discover Bobbitt’s criminal record. The deal fell through after Bobbitt was unable to produce the funds he told Kirkpatrick he had tucked away in the Bahamas.
■ Last week, Plymouth Rock abruptly severed ties with its latest would-be financial backer, Prosperity International LLC of Florida, after the Spotlight Team began raising questions about Prosperity’s claims in marketing materials about its track record and resources. The company, which had approved a $550 million construction loan to the studio developers, has falsely claimed credit for projects it has not been associated with. It is run out of a rented house near Disney World by a man who has been through bankruptcy himself.
Cancellation of the Prosperity loan leaves Plymouth Rock scrambling when it was already struggling to pay the bills. The Plymouth Rock team has raised just $11 million so far. It has spent $15 million, leaving it millions behind in payments to consultants who are trying to get the studio off the ground. Now, the long-awaited groundbreaking for the studio is in limbo as Plymouth Rock tries to line up new funding....
I NEVER WANTED THEM HERE in the FIRST PLACE -- now even less so!
And LOOK AT HOW MUCH TIME and MONEY they WASTED with PUBLIC MEETINGS, etc.
The story of the Plymouth studio project has always been a study in optimistic public predictions while, behind the scenes, major players struggled to keep the project going, and sometimes fought among themselves....
Sounds like the Globe's wretched business pages.
The Plymouth Rock team, a mix of Hollywood veterans such as Earl Lestz, who led the refurbishing of Paramount’s studios, and Boston businesspeople such as former Boston Celtics executive Joseph G. DiLorenzo, say Kirkpatrick is the creative leader, but not involved in day-to-day decisions anymore. He’s just one of 27 employees.DiLorenzo argues that the studio has only two real financial problems: a weak economy and the failure of the state and Governor Deval Patrick to come through with financial support.
Unbelievable!
And Hollywood wonders why we hate their arrogant asses?
The state’s decision in June not to grant the studio $50 million for roads and other infrastructure was a particular blow, he said, because the studio had worked so hard to make its case. “We have not accepted their explanation’’ for the rejection, DiLorenzo said.
What did I tell you? ARROGANCE BEYOND BELIEF!!!
Who the HELL are they to COME IN HERE and say WE DON'T ACCEPT YOU NOT GIVING US TAX LOOT?!!!
GO FUCKING SOMEWHERE ELSE, ASSHOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patrick administration officials said last week that the state still wants to aid Plymouth Rock - if the studio comes up with long-term funding first....
Yeah, I'LL BET they get STATE MONEY anyway!!!
The major constant through the three-year project has been Kirkpatrick himself, who rose from lowly story analyst to become the top movie executive at one of Hollywood’s leading institutions. The charismatic Kirkpatrick has been the face of the Plymouth studio from the start.... a movie mogul who had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and wanted to devote his career to creating family-friendly entertainment.
Well, THAT sure is a SWITCH!
Interesting how I keep having to SEARCH and REFRESH that LINK, huh?
Keeps moving around!!
Kirkpatrick would be the first to admit that the movie business can get nasty....
I think I just demonstrated how, and yes, keep that rotten smut out of my state!
For years, he lived in a world of six-figure bonus payments that afforded him a mansion on North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and a white Cadillac that Harrison Ford called his “Reverend Ike’’ car, Kirkpatrick once told The New York Times. For a decade, he said, he never saw the inside of a grocery store. But Kirkpatrick’s star dimmed after he lost the Paramount job in a 1991 corporate reshuffling....
Like I'm supposed to feel sorry for this sleaze?
Some of the biggest losers in Kirkpatrick’s financial meltdown were the people he hired to write, edit, produce, and appear in his various failed projects. Bankruptcy and other court files detailing Kirkpatrick’s financial distress are thick, and the trail of unpaid creditors is long, telling the story of collaborators dazzled by Kirkpatrick’s big-studio pedigree and then left holding the bag.
Yeah, but OUR STATE LEADERS THROW OPEN the DOOR for him!
Veteran director and editor Scott Miller [said] he was never paid the $35,000 or more Kirkpatrick owed him for directing a basketball video in 2004. “In 35 years, this is the only man who stiffed me and stiffed me in such a vulgar way.’’
Nice going, Plymouth!
I'd say voters should SACK that CITY COUNCIL next go around, hmm?
Kirkpatrick recalls his bankruptcy as “a very tough and humbling experience,’’ but he believes it contained the seeds of a better life, a chance to see “what’s important and valuable.’’ In the midst of bankruptcy, Kirkpatrick began working with a group of Christian businessmen who were eager to offer an antidote to the shallow values of Hollywood....
Oh, THAT is when he FOUND GOD, huh? When he was BANKRUPT!!!
PFFFFFFTTTTTT!
Yet, even as Good News withered, planning for their biggest project - the Massachusetts movie studio - ramped up. The team scouted locations by helicopter, rented office space in a renovated factory in North Plymouth, and held a lavish party where local residents brainstormed ideas for the studio. At least one key Good News executive, CEO Christopher Chisholm, began planning to relocate his family from California to oversee the project....
Mark Panagiotes of Fitchburg... initially proposed the Massachusetts studio under the name “Bay State Studios’’
Now you know WHOM to THANK, Plymouth!
In October 2007 when a man approached Kirkpatrick after hearing a speech he gave at televangelist Pat Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia. George Thomas Bobbitt, whose wife was a film student who dreamed of owning her own studio, told him that God had called him to invest $200 million in Kirkpatrick’s vision.
Hey, WIPE that EGG of your face, Massachushitts DemocraPs!
Bobbitt, a man in his 50s who lived in campus housing and drove an old car, seemed an unlikely major investor, but Kirkpatrick and a fellow Good News founder wasted little time flying Bobbitt to Plymouth for him to learn more about the studio, which then was called “Project Julia.’’ Bobbitt eventually agreed to buy Good News Holdings for $14.4 million and put up many millions more for the studio from bank accounts he said he had in the Bahamas.
It turned out that Bobbitt was a former tax and investment adviser in Kentucky who went to prison in 1998 after pleading guilty to 13 counts of misappropriating at least $600,000 of his investors’ funds....
The sale fell apart because Bobbitt failed to produce the funds he claimed to have....
Wooing Plymouth
When Plymouth’s Town Meeting convened in October 2008 to pass judgment on Plymouth Rock Studios executives’ grand proposal to bring to town what they called “Hollywood East,’’ the results of the vote were a foregone conclusion. But the studio didn’t skimp on pageantry.
“For us at Plymouth Rock Studios this is all about our kids,’’ declared Kirkpatrick. “There is nothing more extraordinary than the wonder of making stories, making pictures.’’
The ARROGANCE of these SELF-ANOINTED SCUM is OVERWHELMING!
The lights went down and the video rolled. TV personality Leeza Gibbons smiled on the people of Plymouth, reminding them, “You all are so fortunate that you have right in your midst . . . a brand-new Hollywood.’’
I'm not feeling that way at all -- especially since we have LOST HUNDREDS of MILLIONS in TAX LOOT to PROFITABLE HOLLYWOOD!
Then came a brief review of the plan and a montage of classic film scenes set to soaring music, ending with Judy Garland and her companions skipping down the Yellow Brick Road.
And THIS PROJECT is about as REAL as that was!!!
You people in Plymouth couldn't see that?
Soon, it was time for Plymouth’s town meeting members to debate tax breaks and re-zoning a golf course for 2 million square feet of sound stages, office space, retail businesses, housing, and a hotel. Except there was no debate. Members voted to cut off discussion before it started, and hoots and applause filled the hall.
So YOU ASKED FOR IT, assholes! NO SYMPATHY from me!
Although much of Plymouth is eager for all that Plymouth Rock Studios has promised, a quiet minority believes town officials have been too star struck to question the background of Plymouth Rock Studios’ principals, their financing, and any risks the development might bring.
“A lot of their support has been this blind, optimistic, ‘Yes, it will be a wonderful thing - we need jobs, we need jobs, we need jobs, and who are you to stand in the way of this?’ ’’ said Bill Abbott, an attorney who was among only three dissenting votes on the studio at Town Meeting.
Yeah, DON'T I KNOW the FEELING!!!!!
Studio officials said they had tirelessly attended more than 400 meetings in Plymouth to address everyone’s concerns, and they pointed to the nearly unanimous approvals they have received from various town bodies, including landslide support in a nonbinding referendum last year....
Some say the studio has not lived up to its promises.
Yeah, BUT!
For example, last year, studio officials hailed their creation of Rock CGI, a computer graphics company that they projected would employ 200 graphic artists by the end of 2008, at annual salaries between $75,000 and $250,000. Now, the officials say they dropped Rock CGI from their plans because it would have distracted from building the studio.
Meanwhile, the studio’s supporters have been treated to a taste of Hollywood glitz, while dissenters have felt the occasional sharp elbow.
Oh, is THAT what they are CALLING TERRORISM these days?
All depends on WHO DOES IT, huh?
When two Planning Board members wrote a memo saying the town was rushing to wrap up negotiations prematurely under “the crushing schedule’’ imposed by the studio, Kirkpatrick railed against the authors for a “preconceived bias that is disturbing.’’
Did he HOLLER ANTI-SEMITISM, too?!
What an ARROGANT ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Town Meeting soon followed his cue and voted to reduce the Planning Board’s ability to oversee the project. When two Plymouth residents circulated material about Kirkpatrick’s background and the troubles at Good News Holdings, they received letters from the project’s lawyers, accusing them of “libelous statements.’’
Hollywood ROLLED YOU, and F***ED YOU, Plymouth!
When a screenwriter who said Kirkpatrick owed him $36,000 wrote an article for Boston Magazine, Good News Holdings’ lawyers threatened legal action, saying he was violating his nondisclosure agreement. The article never ran.
So NOW YOU KNOW who the REAL POWERS are -- and it is NOT the MSM!!!
In June, Plymouth attorney Jerry Benezra sent a package about Kirkpatrick’s bankruptcy and legal troubles to the state agency considering a grant for the project. Not long after, Benezra received an anonymous letter with an ominous, cryptic message. “Jerry,’’ it read, “we smell you.’’
Yeah, WELCOME US to your COMMUNITY -- or else!!!
It included a photocopy of an e-mail between state officials regarding Benezra’s submission. Somehow, within five days of that e-mail being sent, it wound up in the package sent anonymously. Both the studio and state officials say they don’t know how it came to be in outsiders’ hands.
Yeah, the STATE is working in YOUR INTERESTS, residents of Massachusetts!
Yup, LIARS and THUGS are LOOKING OUT for YOU!!!!!!
Meanwhile, the studio has shown its appreciation for its biggest backers. Dick Quintal, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, says he sees paving the way for the studio as his legacy.
These people REALLY ARE OUT of TOUCH, aren't they?
Quintal accompanied studio CEO Earl Lestz earlier this year to the Producers Guild of America annual awards in Hollywood. Quintal, who said he paid his own way, eagerly shared snapshots of fountains and backlots at Paramount, where Lestz once oversaw the physical plant. “They’ve got a track record,’’ he said. “I can pretty much tell somebody the minute I meet them if they’re real.’’
(Blog author is so aghast at the self-delusion and arrogance he can't comment)
Did he see this coming?
Just weeks after the studio popped champagne corks in late September to celebrate a $550 million construction loan from Prosperity International LLC of Orlando, Fla., the deal went bust. It was an embarrassing and potentially crippling collapse that even a modest amount of corporate diligence may have averted.
The Spotlight Team’s investigation found that Prosperity principal Michael F. Burgess has a record of unmet promises and false or misleading claims. The warning signs for potential customers were ample. Consider:
********************************Timothy J. Hadley, the studio’s senior vice president for legal affairs, told the Globe in early November that the studio had fully vetted Prosperity’s background....
Still, Hadley said, the studio was aware of some of Burgess’s background, including the personal bankruptcy he declared in 1995 and the imprisonment this year of his former business partners - a father-son team who were Burgess’s associates in a firm separate from Prosperity. They were sentenced in May for an elaborate bank fraud scheme as representatives of yet another firm with which Burgess was not associated.
Yup, they KNEW the FINANCIER was a CROOK, but WHO CARES when you are SELLING DREAMS, huh?
Since the studio severed ties with Prosperity last week, Burgess has not responded to requests for comment. In an earlier interview with the Globe about his track record, however, he was unapologetic.... He promised that he would deliver for Plymouth Rock.
The day after the studio concluded that he couldn’t - leaving the project in a hard place - Kirkpatrick seemed to have lost a bit of his Hollywood sparkle.
Awwwwwwww!!!!
He tapped out we-shall-survive e-mails to studio supporters. He politely greeted visitors to his austere, bright office in Cordage Park. And he serenely sought to explain away the three-year trail of missteps and missed deadlines left by his plan to bring movie magic to Massachusetts. “It’s certainly a bump in the road,’’ Kirkpatrick said about the Prosperity debacle....
Bump? It's a YAWNING POTHOLE!!!!
And then Kirkpatrick returned his attention to the most critical remaining task. He’s trying once again to find the money to build his studio. “We’re going to try to persist and drive through this,’’ he said. “We do have some alternatives that we’re looking at right now. And we are hopeful and optimistic that those might emerge.’’
Oh, MORE BULLSHIT for YOUR CONSUMPTION, Bay Staters!
So WHERE are they, you SNAKE-OIL CON MAN?
--more--"
And how did the town take it?
"Plymouth absorbs news of studio setback; Developers tell town they’ll press on despite cutting ties with lender" by Christine Legere, Globe Correspondent | November 12, 2009
PLYMOUTH - Town officials and residents were taken by surprise yesterday when news broke that developers of a proposed $550 million movie studio on the South Shore had severed ties with their major lender. But some remained supportive of the team of film executives behind Plymouth Rock Studios, who came to town two years ago with the promise to create Hollywood East, bringing much-needed tax dollars and jobs to this coastal community.
You will NEVER LEARN, will you?
Dick Silva, Plymouth Rock’s most enthusiastic local supporter and president of the booster group Yes to the Rock, said he talked to fans who remain upbeat. “It’s just a step backward in the climb up the hill,’’ Silva said. “I anticipate that someone is going to look at this and decide that funding the project will be a win-win for both Plymouth Rock and its investors.’’
Yup, the FIRST GUY the PRO-HOLLYWOOD GLOBE leads with is the BIGGEST BOOSTER!
On Tuesday, the partners behind Plymouth Rock revealed that they had broken off their relationship with Prosperity International, an Orlando-based investor that promised to finance the studio project. The developers said they canceled their agreement with Prosperity because the lender was required to meet a milestone on Friday and failed to do so....
Plymouth Selectman John T. Mahoney said there is not much for the town to do now other than wait, while developers work to find new financing. “Just because one avenue is closed, I’m not convinced the project is dead,’’ Mahoney said. “The town, to date, has done everything they could on their end to accommodate the studio, because they understand the significance of its impact on the whole state.’’
Yeah, we are going to be SUBSIDIZING THEM to the tune on HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of TAXPAYER DOLLARS as SERVICES are CUT!!!
There has been little investment in the project from the state, which declined an application from the film studio company for a $50 million grant for infrastructure costs. “We will work with them to explore the options,’’ said Kofi Jones, spokeswoman for the state Office of Housing and Economic Development.
(Blog author totally disgusted at this point)
Despite the financial setbacks, Plymouth Rock said yesterday it would stick by its promise to provide $25 million in funding for the MIT Media Lab and Center for Future Storytelling....
??????
They CAN'T EVEN PAY THEIR BILLS but they can fund that self-serving slop?
--more--"
And WHOSE NAME NEVER CAME up in BOTH THOSE PIECES?
"Studio project faces new queries; Some voice support but Galvin to look at firm’s papers" by Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | November 17, 2009
Some Plymouth officials said yesterday that they have lost confidence that the leaders of a plan to build a $650 million movie and TV studio can deliver the project billed as an economic engine that would create thousands of jobs.
WTF, Glob?
TWO DAYS AGO it was EVERYONE'S STILL FOR IT!!!!!!
F***ing lying sacks of s***!
After a Globe Spotlight report Sunday that raised financial and legal questions about Plymouth Rock Studios and tracked its troubled history, some town officials are now asking why the studio did not share more financial and business information as it pursued, and won, expansive zoning changes and generous tax breaks from Plymouth.
Pffft!
Yeah, thanks for DOING YOUR JOB BEFOREHAND, state pukes!
The reason is, of course, that if THEY KNEW ALL THEY SHOULD HAVE the looter NEVER WOULD HAVE GOTTEN the LOOT!
“They told you what they wanted you to know and withheld what they didn’t want you to know,’’ said Lawrence Rosenblum, a member of the Planning Board.
Sort of like what the GOVERNMENT and MSM did regarding the LIES about IRAQ, huh?!!!!
State officials are asking questions, too....
Oh, NOW state officials are ASKING QUESTIONS!!
Like HOW DID THAT HORSE get out the BARN?!!!!
Of course, SOME are NOT ASKING!!!
Some top officials remain supportive of most of the studio team. Senate President Therese Murray released a statement affirming the “wide-ranging support and expectation’’ that remains for the studio. “One person doesn’t make or break a project of this magnitude,’’ the statement said, a reference to Kirkpatrick. “There are a lot of good people involved in this project, and it is up to the studio to go out and find other financing.’’
Dick Quintal, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said he still supports the project. “These are serious people,’’ he said of the studio team. Quintal said it is not the town’s place to get involved in vetting a private company’s financing.
Yup, the BIGGEST BOOSTER gets ANOTHER PARAGRAPH in the FOLLOW-UP!
But others are more alarmed.
“I would find it hard to believe that a reputable financier would give this group money . . . after what they might have already known and what they certainly know now,’’ said Paul Luszcz, who chairs a committee of Town Meeting members. As for the town’s relationship with the studio, Luszcz said, “How do we become comfortable with these people and trust them given everything that we know?’’
Answer: YOU DO NOT!
Would YOU feel comfortable with a LIAR and a THIEF in YOUR LIVING ROOM?
Rosenblum and Luszcz said their panels had pushed the studio in vain for information on its financing and business plan. The studio deemed the business plan confidential because of a rival proposal in Weymouth, Rosenblum said. The studio met privately with a handful of people, including two selectmen, in June. Studio executives showed 50 or 60 pages of documents detailing $550 million in financing they were going to secure from a European bank, said Selectman John Mahoney, who attended. Specifics, including the name of the bank, were blacked out, he said.
But TRUST US!
Meanwhile, Mark Ridder, owner of the 240-acre golf course that the studio was scheduled to purchase earlier this month for $16.5 million, said he has a nonrefundable deposit from the studio for at least $1 million. “The studio has done everything they said they were going to do with me,’’ Ridder said. Bill Wynne, president of the studio’s real estate arm “has been fabulous and up front with me.’’
Yeah, so NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, Plymouth!
LIES are NOW TRUTH and DON'T YOU FORGET IT!!!
I guess LIFE really is a STAGE and we are merely players!
But, he said, if the studio project were to collapse, he would continue to collect green’s fees at the 11-year-old Waverly Oaks Golf Club. “We have a good business there,’’ Ridder said. “Waverly wasn’t for sale.’’
--more--"
