by Robert Powell

The most dramatic moment at Sunday’s Richmond premiere of “John Adams” occurred before the TV mini-series was screened.

An organist was warming up the crowd in the 80-year-old Byrd Theatre when suddenly the music stopped and the lights went out. A theater manager announced that the Byrd had suffered a power outage and appealed for calm. Suddenly, a figure waving a flashlight bounded onto the darkened stage. It was Tom Hanks, the Oscar-winning actor and executive producer of “John Adams.”

“Virginia has survived for 300 years,” he said, holding the flashlight aloft like a candle. “You can survive a few moments of a power outage.  Remain not just calm but convivial.”

The audience whooped and cheered (although a few politely noted that Virginia is actually 400 years old). The outage was brief, and the show went on. But many in the crowd, which included members of the movie’s cast and crew, may have seen a metaphor in the lights going out on a Virginia movie premiere.

A new war between the states is brewing, and this time the objectives are film productions like “John Adams.” The seven-part HBO mini-series is based on David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography of the Massachusetts patriot who became the nation’s second president. Most of the filming took place in Virginia, generating $80 million in economic activity.

Virginia got the film by offering Hanks and his fellow producers $1.25 million in incentives. The Massachusetts legislature was so angry about losing the project that it enacted the most generous incentives for film productions in the country. As a result, Virginia native Richard Kelly is filming much of his movie, “The Box,” in Boston, although the story is set in Virginia. The Daily Press in Newport News dubbed the Virginia’s reversal of fortune “the Revenge of John Adams.”

In fact, members of Virginia’s film industry have worried for years about the increasing competitiveness of state incentive programs. Efforts to boost Virginia’s incentives have gotten tepid support from the General Assembly. This year, two bills proposed tax credits equaling 15 percent of the money film makers spend in Virginia. Both were set aside.

One piece of legislation affecting the film industry did survive. That bill extends until 2019 a break on state sales taxes for filmmakers buying goods in the state.

Rita McClenny, the head of Virginia’s film office, says the state is currently in the hunt for eight movies. How many will it get without incentives? “None of them,” she says.