Georgia Just Lost 2 Big Productions Over Abortion Law

Georgia's strict new abortion law is starting to take a toll on the state's burgeoning entertainment industry. A film starring Kristen Wiig won't film there, nor will a TV show for Amazon Studios. The Wiig film is Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, being written by Wiig and Bridesmaids collaborator Annie Mumolo, reports Variety. The TV show is The Power, a sci-fi drama about young women based on a novel by Naomi Alderman, reports Time. Both projects aimed to take advantage of Georgia's generous tax credits for TV and film production, but the creators are going elsewhere to protest the state's recently signed "fetal heartbeat law," which seeks to ban abortions around the six-week mark.

"We had no problem stopping the entire process instantly,” The Power director Reed Morano tells Time. “There is no way we would ever bring our money to that state by shooting there.” Morano was supposed to be in the state this week scouting locations. The industry is credited with creating about 92,000 jobs in Georgia and $9.5 billion in economic impact, per Time, but big-name actors including Sean Penn, Mia Farrow, Jason Bateman, and Ben Stiller have backed the idea of state boycott, notes the Washington Post. (Georgia's law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, was followed by an even stricter one in Alabama.)