The university wants to play a major role in the city’s movie future.
By Charlie Patton
It's an oft-told bit of Jacksonville lore that early in the 20th century the city competed with New York and Los Angeles as a center of motion picture production. But by 1917, political opposition here and a milder climate there led filmmakers to abandon Jacksonville for Hollywood.
A vestige of Jacksonville's decade as a film capital is located on Arlington Road: the old Norman Studios, built in 1916, which a nonprofit foundation is trying to turn into a museum.
Now administrators at Jacksonville University, a few blocks from that piece of the city's movie past, are hoping the school can become a significant part of Jacksonville's movie future.
