It wasn’t that long ago that the industry was splintered and struggling to get lawmakers to pass some form of tax incentives. Today, there’s no question that the state’s rapidly-growing film industry has found its voice.

A more modest, phased-in approach priced at about $250 million will start with some sound stages and office space. The first phase of the studio complex will sit on about 40 acres.

The Massachusetts House has successfully batted back proposed caps on the state’s film tax credit program. During a sometimes impassioned debate on the House floor on Wednesday, lawmakers rejected an amendment that would have limited the tax credit to $50 million dollars per year.

The film industry easily survived a challenge in the House Wednesday to tax breaks which supporters claim are necessary inducements for industry jobs in Massachusetts. Efforts to pass a pair of proposals scaling back industry tax breaks won only 10 and 15 votes in the House after lengthy debate.

Yesterday, the crew of “Boston’s Finest’’ filmed scenes for its pilot at the South End Buttery. The detective show will star Katee Sackhoff of “Battlestar Galactica’’ and “24’’ fame, as well as Goran Visnjic, of “ER,’’ Nia Long, of “Third Watch,’’ and Treat Williams, who has been in just about everything. In other pilot news, “The Quinn-Tuplets,’’ a show starring Amber Tamblyn of “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’’ and Anna Chlumsky of “My Girl,’’ is set to film scenes today in Lowell.

Talent companies out to bilk wannabe kid stars are following Hollywood to the Bay State, according to industry watchdogs who warn of a dark side to the local film boom.

The public policy choice remains simple: Doesn’t it make sense to keep a dollar’s worth of spending in the commonwealth for a dime’s worth of investment? Seventy-seven percent of more than 5,000 respondents to a recent WCVB-TV survey plus a unanimous vote of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Revenue, said “YES.”

Hollywood studios, production companies and independent producers invested more than $521 million in Georgia in fiscal year 2008-09; the state estimates the economic impact of this investment at $929 million. Louisiana has experienced economic success, as well. Its Economic Development department’s Web site says the incentives have generated thousands of jobs and more than $2 billion since the program began in 2002.

A legislative panel yesterday all but killed a proposal to roll back the state’s film tax credits to 2006 levels and restore a $7 million-per-film cap. The Joint Committee on Revenue voted unanimously to give Rep. Steven D’Amico’s bill a recommendation of “ought not to pass.”

A legislative committee yesterday unanimously rejected a bill that would have sharply curtailed the state’s tax credit for the film industry, saying the legislation would hurt a thriving industry that is one of the few bright spots in a dour Massachusetts economy.

Legislation scaling back the state’s tax sweeteners for the film industry received a unanimous thumbs-down today from the Revenue Committee. Joe Maiella, president of the Mass. Production Coalition, applauded the vote saying, “The film industry is outperforming virtually every other sector of the Massachusetts economy during the worst economic recession in living memory. This kind of performance should be protected, not damaged.”

Why cut one of the most successful economic incentive programs we have? People are working, new jobs are being created and existing industries are being bolstered by this program.

WCVB-TV 5 and the BostonChannel.com conducted and online survey between March 4th and 8th. Of the more than 5,000 respondents, 77% registered their support of the Massachusetts film tax credit.

Robert Richardson, ASC delves into darkness for Martin Scorcese’s “Shutter Island” which follows a federal investigation into a sinister psychiatric facility.

In the last four years, 38 major motion pictures have been shot in the Bay State, including the Scorsese-DiCaprio “Shutter Island” that’s currently a box office hit. The main reason for the surge in production is a 25 percent film tax credit that went into effect in 2006. It’s generated a billion dollars in economic activity and added jobs in a down economy. For that reason, we believe the credit deserves to stay uncapped.

They came to the Statehouse not to shoot a movie, but to try to save tax credits in Massachusetts. Among those testifying against the bill was Essex Selectman Ray Randall. “It is likely, if we were to calculate it, that hundreds of thousands of dollars were brought into the town of Essex because of the spending on the movie ‘Grown Ups’ last summer,” Randall said.

Supporters swarmed the State House on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to oppose a bill sponsored by Rep. Steve D’Amico to cap the film tax credit. The industry is showing itself to be a bigger force than it was in 2005, when lawmakers first adopted the credits. That’s because the credits are working, and there are plenty of local companies that have been adding many year-round jobs during the worst depths of the recession. D’Amico once told me he hoped that the movie studios that are proposed for Massachusetts would never get built. His reasoning is that such large complexes would create a critical mass of permanent film industry workers in the state, making it politically impossible to take the tax credits away. State lawmakers are finding out that the critical mass is already here. The leaders on Beacon Hill will now need to decide if they want to chase it away.

Hollywood history buff Tom Hanks made a Splash at the JFK Library last night at a screening of his latest World War II epic titled “The Pacific.”

The crowd of more than 300 in the capitol’s largest hearing venue was overwhelmingly in favor of the current tax credits.

“You can’t opt in and then out of offering film tax credits,” said producer David Hoberman (“The Fighter” and “The Proposal”) referring to Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to cap the film tax credit at $50 million – down from around $125 million. “If you’re going to stay in the business of making movies, then stay in the business,” said the man behind Disney’s Mandeville Films, who was at Suffolk University yesterday leading a screenwriting workshop for 50 undergrads. “You need to develop infrastructure and talent. It takes time for people to feel secure enough to stay in Massachusetts if they know there’s going to be work,” he said.