The bright lights of Hollywood have returned to Florida’s west coast to shine again on Winter, a bottlenose dolphin at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and star of the 2011 film “Dolphin Tale.”
“Dolphin Tale 2” is scheduled to wrap shooting in late January at the aquarium and other locations around Pinellas County, with a mid-September release planned. In addition to Winter and other marine friends from the aquarium, the film stars Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman and Kris Kristofferson.
Winter’s real life story of rehabilitation, care and subsequent fitting with a prosthetic tail was the inspiration for the original film.
The nonprofit aquarium, which opened as a marine biology learning center in the mid-1970s, has been a huge benefactor of what its CEO, David Yates, has called “movie-induced tourism.” Fans of the film have flocked to the Clearwater/St. Petersburg area to see Winter, visit the aquarium and subsequently spend time and money at area hotels, beaches and businesses.
Aquarium attendance in 2010, the last full year before release of “Dolphin Tale,” was 215,000, according to Yates. A year after the movie release, Yates says attendance at the aquarium topped 750,000. Yates added that 400,000 of those 2012 visitors came from out of state.
According to a news release, record attendance has continued this year at the aquarium; visitation in March, at the height of the spring break season, was the third highest for a single month in the aquarium’s history.
According to Visit Clearwater, 284,200 people have visited the city of Clearwater this fall, generating a total economic impact of $586,052,200. This is an increase of more than 38,000 compared with the same period in 2011.
Yates is pleased that the film’s publicity has afforded greater opportunities to increase the aquarium’s core mission and generate new revenue streams to support the burgeoning crowds.
In November, voters in Clearwater approved a referendum to fund the expansion of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. A new 200,000-square-foot facility would be built on the current City Hall site, which is scheduled to be torn down. If funding continues as planned, the new aquarium is expected to completed in mid-2017.
"The whole community's been great to us. One of our jobs is to give back any way we can; one way we can give back is to keep driving the tourism impact we're doing right now," Yates told a local TV news outlet in November. "This will drive more people downtown, hopefully reinvigorate downtown development. The city's been a great partner for many, many years and we expect to continue that."