Union Musicians Say Marvel Takes Tax Breaks then Hires Overseas Talent

Union Musicians Say Marvel Takes Tax Breaks then Hires Overseas Talent

Marvel’s Iron Man 3 is expected to start the summer move season with a repulsor blast of box office power. Tell that to members of the American Federation of Musicians, a union protesting the company’s use of foreign musicians in both the superhero sequel as well as the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

AFM members were outside the midtown Manhattan offices of Marvel on Tuesday handing out leaflets angry with the studio not using their members for Iron Man 3….

“Marvel is unfair to musicians because they take tax breaks from states but when it comes to doing a score for their movies, they outsource the work overseas. We’ve been protesting and raising the alarm about this over two years since Iron Man 1 and we feel those jobs belong in the US,” John Acosta VP of AFM Local 47 told me today.

Many states lure film and TV productions by offering studios tax incentives. New Mexico offers aggressive tax breaks to film productions as does North Carolina where parts of the Iron Man sequel were shot. 

Iron Man 3, starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Ben Kingsley, hits U.S. theaters May 3.

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