“We put our feet up, we took things for granted,” opined California Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 2, as he signed into law a doubling of the state’s tax incentives for film and TV projects from $330 million to $750 million annually. Now the impact of the move is starting to come into focus: California saw a 10 percent increase year-over-year in shoots in the third quarter, per a report from industry tracker ProdPro shared with The Hollywood Reporter.
Before the state’s advocates congratulate themselves on stemming the filming exodus, it’s worth underscoring that most of California’s biggest competitors saw upticks too. And California’s production spend in the third quarter actually fell 10 percent year-over-year to $1.5 billion, which ProdPro attributes to more indie films shooting in the state as opposed to big-budget titles, which usually employ more crewmembers.
To that point, in the latest round of projects receiving incentives granted by the California Film Commission, only 10 were big-budget studio titles — those included Heat 2 and the next Jumanji movie — while 42 were indie projects, like Bill Murray and Kristen Wiig starrer Epiphany. Of those 42 indies, there were 32 projects with budgets under the $10 million figure.
That trend is playing out in Hollywood’s hometown. In Los Angeles, about 10 percent more feature films shot in the city in the quarter but more of those movies were indies, permitting office FilmLA reported October 14, also noting a scary 20 percent drop in episodic television shoots. That’s a major decline that local production that advocates hope to reverse, but is also the result of fewer episode orders from major studios. FilmLA vp Philip Sokoloski had described the quarter as showing “early signs of these incentives having their desired effect” as tax credits kick in.
One of California’s biggest rivals, New York state, jumped 17 percent year-over-year in TV and movie shoot count in the third quarter of this year, yet production spend also fell 32 percent to $849 million. The Empire State has its film and TV incentives capped at $800 million annually, or slightly ahead of California even after Newsom and the legislature boosted the program.
New Mexico, the home base of Netflix’s ABQ Studios, where Ransom Canyon and Better Call Saul have filmed, and Vince Gilligan’s new Apple TV series Pluribus, rose 25 percent in shoot count but fell steeply in production spend, by 37 percent, to $62 million in Q3. The state, which currently has a $130 million annual cap on its incentive program, touted on Nov. 18 that Ransom Canyon season two alone will employ about 700 New Mexicans, including crew and background actors as it shoots in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and more locations for the Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly Western romance.
Illinois, home to home to four Dick Wolf procedurals on NBC (Chicago Fire, P.D., Med, and Justice), soared 63 percent in shoot counts in the third quarter and rose 12 percent in production spend to $198 million. Other indicators are pointing toward the state as a growing production hub: Illinois has seen notable year-over-year growth in background actor jobs booked, per internal figures from extras’ software payroll services firm Everyset.
Then there’s rising powerhouse New Jersey. The state will be home to Netflix’s East coast production hub when Fort Monmouth studios is scheduled to be built in 2028, as well as Paramount’s forthcoming Bayonne, New Jersey base at 1888 Studios. In the third quarter, the Garden State saw movie and TV filming counts spike 100 percent year-over-year. From a production spend perspective, the news is even better for Jersey, spend has soared 170 percent year-over-year to $400 million for the quarter.
Even before Netflix and Paramount move in to their new production hubs, business has been booming. New Jersey disclosed on Oct. 21 that it saw $833 million in in-state production spend in 2024, a record, from more than 556 productions last year, including 20th Century Studios’ music dramas A Complete Unknown and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere as well as Netflix Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore 2. (Jersey credited the Boss drama alone for $41.8 million in spending during 31 days of shooting on-location, including near the singer’s old digs in Asbury Park).
Meanwhile, Georgia, a production powerhouse and one major location where Stranger Things has shot in all five of its seasons and The Walking Dead filmed 11 seasons, has taken a tumble. The state saw a 33 percent decline in both movie and TV filming shoot count and in production spend, which fell to $351 million, in the third quarter. Georgia had been home to a Marvel Studios’ production hub but Disney’s superhero franchise is decamping to the U.K. for several key features. Paramount’s Tulsa King and Fox’s Will Trent season four are among the shows listed as in production in Georgia.
The U.S., as a whole, saw film shoots rise 15 percent in the third quarter of this year, while the U.K., Canada and Australia all saw shoots decline year-over-year. And the outlook for the rest of the year may a downer: ProdPro estimates total global production spend for 2025 at $41.6 billion, about 7 percent lower overall than last year. And while Disney and David Ellison’s Paramount have both upped their content spend forecast for 2026, those funds may not trickle as much to features and shows as much as sports and international content.
This story appeared in the Nov. 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.