Seems not so long ago that then-Dallas Mayor Laura Miller and Dallas Film Commission director Janis Burklund were staging a press conference in the Dallas City Hall Flag Room begging the producers of the (ill-fated) big-screen Dallas to “Shoot JR Here.” They brought with them T-shirts and bumper stickers, and despite the gimmicks they were serious and not a little desperate to re-energize local film and TV production, which had grown fallow in the absence of state tax incentives that could lure cameras and crews to Dallas.

Some four years later, Burklund cannot recall Dallas ever having been this loaded with productions. Of course, FOX’s Code 58 is here till at least July, and, as we mentioned two weeks ago, Jerry Bruckheimer is set to shoot an NBC pilot, Chase, in March. So far, only Desperate Housewives’ Jesse Metcalfe has been cast as a U.S. Marshal on the lookout for fugitives in the American Southwest.

Continue reading Jesse Metcalfe to film Chase pilot in Dallas, Texas