After a sluggish few years, American producers finally appear hot on Quebec again.

At press time, the co-owner of the city’s largest studio facility, Mel’s Cité du Cinéma, said he’s negotiating with two American producers to shoot five big-budget projects in the province in September. ‘It’s going to be a very busy summer,’ says Mel’s Michel Trudel.

Quebec’s film commissioner Hans Fraikin also says he’s fielding numerous calls, but he remains cautious: ‘I’m busier than I’ve ever been, but nothing has been finalized.’

The renewed interest in Montreal is a direct result of the province’s new tax credit for foreign producers, which allows them to claim 25% of all their production-related expenses. In the past, producers could only claim a rebate for labor costs, which typically comprise half of a production budget. As a result, the new rules essentially double the value of the Quebec tax credit

‘Because of the liquidity crisis, producers are concerned with the bottom line now more than ever,’ says the film commissioner. ‘They are quadrupling their efforts to get the best deal they can. Before, that was important, but now it’s essential,’ he says.

Fraikin says it’s ‘a buyer’s market’ for those scouting locations these days because American states and other Canadian provinces are scrambling to attract the Hollywood majors. ‘The government has now placed Quebec in a slightly more attractive position to compete with Toronto and Vancouver.’

Shooting in Montreal is also easier now because Quebec recently passed Bill 32, a law which finally resolves the long-standing turf war between the Quebec technicians union, AQTIS, and IATSE, a union based in the U.S.

IATSE has been trying to break into Quebec to represent technicians on American film shoots in the province, but AQTIS maintained it had exclusive rights under the province’s status of the artist legislation. Bill 32 amends the rules to allow IATSE to represent Quebec technicians.

While Mel’s studio awaits a final commitment on a number of big-budget films, two American productions are already here. The CBS Films’ flick Beastly began shooting in Montreal June 20. The feature, a modern-day spin on Beauty and the Beast, co-stars British actor Alex Pettyfer (Stormbreaker) and Mary-Kate Olsen.

Also in town is Varsity Pictures/Lionsgate’s Blue Mountain State, a football comedy series for Spike TV shooting on the sports fields at John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue on the western tip of Montreal Island. It’s billed as an Animal House-like comedy about three freshmen (played by Darin Brooks, Chris Romano and Sam Jones III) at a Midwest college.

But The Beautiful Life, a drama for The CW (about a modeling agency in Manhattan), which shot its pilot in Montreal, will not be back. Although CW will make a full series, it will be filmed on location in New York, which now offers generous tax credits.

‘We have a lot to offer and producers still need what we have,’ says Fraikin. ‘We can do Europe and the United States. We have Old World and American architecture.’