Michael Moore to subsidize reopening of downtown MI theaters

TRAVERSE CITY — Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore has a new project on tap — revitalizing derelict, depressed downtown theaters in communities across Michigan.
Moore, who founded the Traverse City Film Festival in 2005 and two years later orchestrated the full-time reopening of the boarded-up downtown movie house, plans to launch the "State Theatre/Michigan Downtowns Project" as a way to offer start-up funding for new nonprofit theaters.

He will use state film tax credit money he expects to receive from his Traverse City-based production "Capitalism: A Love Story" — estimated at $650,000 to $1 million — to create a project he hopes will help revitalize battered Michigan communities.

"We want to turn on the marquee lights, bring in some jobs, pump money into the local economy," Moore said. "This is just my effort to think of ways to do more."

The project would give grants, to be used as seed money, for three main purposes: to reopen theaters that sit vacant, to sustain those that are open but struggling, and to start downtown movie theaters where there are none.