New Jersey Expands Production Initiatives as Soundstages Grow – MASHAHER

Over the last six years, New Jersey has become a top destination for film, television and, most recently, reality program production.

The state’s Film and Digital Media Tax Credit Program launched in late 2018 under the leadership of Gov. Phil Murphy after being indefinitely suspended in 2010. Initially, under Murphy’s tax credit initiative, the annual cap for film and television production was $75 million. Productions earned credits for up to 30% of eligible expenses and up to 35% in certain more remote areas of New Jersey. Today the tax credit has expanded to $430 million per year through 2039 and in an effort to create a more inclusive workforce, and offers an additional incentive (2% or 4%) to productions that meet certain diversity criteria.

Murphy says that reinstating the state’s film tax incentive was a no brainer.

“It’s a natural for New Jersey,” says Murphy, who points out that state is the birthplace of film with Thomas Edison’s laboratory in West Orange being the place where the kinetograph and kinetoscope were invented. “Our talent, our location, we are a big union state — there’s reason upon reason upon reason. And it has a very immediate and significant economic impact, particularly on the communities in which things are filmed.”

Since 2018, the total qualified spend in New Jersey due to film production in the state is $2.4 billion. The qualified spend in 2023 was $592 million.

Since 2021, the state has hosted over 1,891 productions including 223 feature films, 43 miniseries and 331 television series. The state currently has 70 working stages.

Movies that have taken advantage of New Jersey stages and locales include Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and Todd Phillips’ “Joker.” In May, “A Complete Unknown,” the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, shot in the Jersey shore’s Cape May area. And at this year’s Toronto Intl. Film Festival, five films that were shot in the Garden State will premiere including Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence,” Thom Zimny’s documentary “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” and David Mackenzie’s thriller ”Relay,” starring Lily James and Riz Ahmed.

“I wanted New York [but] the finance [people] wanted New Jersey because it’s a bit cheaper — a bit more of a break all over,” says Mackenzie. “We shot the Newark airport and Riz’s [apartment] was in Harrison. [Lily James’] apartment, which we were saying was Battery Park City, was, in fact, in Hoboken. So it was kind of like Jersey for New York. And some of the other places, when (the cast) leave the city, are also New Jersey. So we got the balance right.”

Since the New Jersey film tax credit came into effect, numerous productions have used the state as a substitute for the five boroughs. The high demand for stage space and location filming in New York City has been an issue for decades. The four major studios — Kaufman Astoria, Silvercup, Steiner and Broadway Stages — are booked, often for years. So it came as no surprise that developers in the tristate area immediately jumped on New Jersey’s attractive film incentive program by building several production studios including Palisades Stages,10 Basin Studios, Cinelease Caven Point.

In March, the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission (NJMPTVC) named Jon Crowley its new executive director. Prior to joining the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the organization under which the production incentives program lives, Crowley worked in the television industry for over two decades, producing and directing several television series. In his new role, Crowley travels all over the world to explain the benefits of using New Jersey’s soundstages and its diverse locations.

“We’ve got more varied locations than you even have in Los Angeles,” says Crowley. “If you need a big city, we’ve got it. If you need a small town, we’ve got it. You want a beach or a mountain with snow. We’ve got it. And the thing is that New Jersey is geographically compact. You can literally go from the beach to a mountain with snow in 90 minutes. My joke is that sometimes in Los Angeles it takes 90 minutes to go across town.”

In addition to being used as a substitute for New York City, in recent years New Jersey has doubled for Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Florida, Los Angeles, New England,  Philadelphia, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, southern states and Washington, D.C.

Crowley adds that the state’s first-rate workforce has also helped attract productions.

“I’ve directed in more than 25 states and in 22 countries and it’s always a concern that if you don’t have the ability to travel with your own crew, then where are you going to get an experienced crew?” says Crowley. “Almost 40% of the experienced New York crews live in New Jersey and they really prefer to wake up and get in their car and drive 30 minutes to set versus having to slug their way across a bridge or a tunnel.”

New Jersey’s first lady Tammy Snyder Murphy also credits the NJMPTVC’s  Film Ready initiative for attracting a continuous stream of productions to the state. The five-step certification and marketing program educates municipalities about movie and TV production, which enables that state’s cities and towns to effectively accommodate on-location filming and market their communities as filming destinations.

“Essentially what we do is we educate our communities so that they can be film-ready certified,” says the first lady. “Meaning they know what to expect on their side. They understand about permitting, and they understand about access. Several years ago, we went into the set of ‘West Side Story’ and that’s when Steven Spielberg, out of his his own mouth, said that when he was filming in New York City there were exactly zero rules and people could walk through the set … So they had to repeat and retake and it adds time and money to the budget … In New Jersey we are so excited and so welcoming and so proud to have all of these films being made and shot in our communities.”

In the next few years it’s possible that every resident in New Jersey will be “Film Ready.” In May, the NJED approved a $400 million Aspire tax credit to help build 1888 Studios, a campus-style production studio featuring 23 soundstages ranging from 18,000 to 60,000-square-feet with 40- to 50-foot-height ceilings. Situated on 58 acres of land in the Bergen Point neighborhood of Bayonne, the studio is being spearheaded by Togus Urban Renewal’s Arpad Busson, the New York-based French financier, along with Rothschild in the U.K. and New York-based Moore Group.

A former Texaco oil refinery, 1888 Studios will also feature 350,000-square-feet of production support space, outdoor backlot space, office spaces, lighting and grip facilities and a parking garage.

“The tax incentives show that (New Jersey) understands what it needs to do to build an ecosystem,” Busson told ROI-NJ.com in June. “They are building an ecosystem that can compete with anywhere.”

The 1888 Studios is one of three major film production facilities coming to New Jersey in the next few years. Great Point Studios — a 12-acre development — is a partnership between TV and film producer Robert Halmi, Lionsgate and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Later this year, Great Point Studios will break ground on the former site of a public housing complex in Newark. The 300,000-square-foot full-service complex will include production stages ranging from 20,000-to-30,000-square-feet, offices, support space and parking. The facility will offer a full set of production services on site.

Meanwhile in 2022, Netflix announced that they were developing a New Jersey-based production facility on the former Fort Monmouth campus in Monmouth County. Later this year, the streaming company will begin to transform the property, which has been largely vacant for more than a decade, into an economic engine that is estimated to create more than 1,500 permanent production jobs and more than 3,500 construction-related jobs. Netflix says that it will commit $848 million in capital investments to develop the more than 292-acre parcel into 12 soundstages totaling nearly 500,000-square-feet of new development, with the remainder of the property slated for redevelopment with supporting film uses and several community amenities.

“I’m extremely proud of our investment in New Jersey,” Ted Sarandos said during a November 2023 press conference. “I’m thrilled to deepen our relationship with this community with this project … Our goal for this studio is to benefit everybody in the area and to produce world-class, high-quality TV series and films. I hope one day you will see ‘Filmed in New Jersey’ on your favorite Netflix show or film.”

The establishment of three major production facilities in the Garden State is exactly what Gov. Murphy was hoping for back in 2018 when he put the film credit in place.

“In 2018 we put tax incentives back in place to make stuff in New Jersey, film and TV in particular,” says Murphy. “We still do that. We still love that. But the big aha since then is that we doubled down on bricks and mortar and building soundstages and studios.That means that we are not just building bricks and mortar just to make one episode or one film. We are making a multi-decade commitment. We have a number of, I think the only word to describe it is, massive or transformational studios [coming to New Jersey].”

SIDEBAR:

New Jersey’s Film and Digital Media Tax Credit Program provides:

A transferable tax credit of up to 30%-35% of qualified production expenses incurred in the state.

Qualified spend: 35% and 30% on qualified expenses within a 30-mile radius of Columbus Circle.

Labor: 35% on all above the line and below the line positions.

Annual cap: $430 million that extends through 2039; productions can roll forward into the next year’s allocation if the current year has been exhausted. 

Compensation cap: $750,000 per individual

Minimum spend: $1 million (or 60% of total production expenses in-state)

Project cap: None

Additional uplifts: 2% or 4% on applications with an approved diversity plan

Diversity plan: not required unless applying for the diversity bonus.

Reality incentive: To qualify, a project must have a minimum six-episode order on a linear broadcast network or streamer, a minimum spend of $1 million and 60% of total production expenses in N.J. (Qualified spend: 30% or 35%, with 2%-4% diversity bonus)

Motion Picture Cameras: In August 2024 PRG brought Arriflex, Sony and Panasonic camera rigs and technicians to their 160,00 sq. foot Secaucus facility. New Jersey film and television infrastructure (rental houses, suppliers and services) will continue to expand.