California Film Commission

A post-production tax credit, a broader film and television tax credit, and rules barring AI-generated replicas of performers.

The California Film Commission's expanded film and television tax credit program directed funding to 35 productions in its most recent allocation round, 28 of them independent projects.

Commission projections put the expected direct production activity from those approvals at over $1 billion, with roughly 5,400 cast and crew members and some 24,800 background performers set to work.

Lawmakers from both parties are also advancing a federal tax credit designed to layer on top of existing state incentives.

They're either going to film later this year or early next year.

But they have also received a California Film Commission tax incentive.

So they will be filming here in California.

They're getting $30.4 million.

One of the big films of the year that we've kind of moved on from and aren't, aren't really talking about, it came at the beginning of the year, was Michael, which did ridiculously well.

It now seems that California Film Commission has handed out its latest round of film tax credit approvals, and the sequel to, to Michael is gonna nab about 30 odd million in state tax incentives, so that basically means keep, keep it in California where it can be shot there, and is one of 35 films set to receive a share of the 226 million total credits.

So the original Michael received 21 million in credits, and the resulting film went on to earn more than a billion at the box office, and we talked about this at the time because going down the route of a sequel, there are, well, there are certain, um-

Legal issues [laughs]

This isn't long winded, but it ties back into the fact that people were basically expecting like, yeah, we should have gotten Guardians of the Galaxy type of stuff with lanterns.

Like, what the hell? I can't confirm for you at this time that the California Film Commission, they reported that Lantern spent more than $130 million in California during production.

Now, that's not, you know, final numbers, but just the fact that $130 million was spent during production.

Right.

IRS immigration data shows that there's been a net of 11.9 billion in annual, a net loss of 11.9 billion in annual registered income associated with residents leaving between 2022 and 2023.

And then of course, the California Film Commission estimates that 1.6 billion in potential production was lost between 2020 and 2024 because of its tax credits not necessarily being beneficial compared to other states.

Of course, Tesla, everybody knows, has moved its corporate headquarters to Texas.

This is a company that was founded in California in Silicon Valley.

Well, I think I was talking with somebody this the other day, and I think that much like what non-scripted workers, camera people had to do with the 600 in terms of like, getting themselves established within the infrastructure, within the officer structure of the 600, and getting a seat at the table.

I think that's kind of where we are right now with the California Film Commission, which is the commission that sort of... is involved with the distribution of the tax incentives.

At this point, I looked at who's on the board, like generally who's making kind of the decisions as to what productions are getting tax incentives.

And there's not really a representative that I saw that looked like you could link them to non-scripted television.

It was to do the, with the insane bureaucracy that that production was experiencing at the hands of FilmLA.

And so all of these bureaucracies, FilmLA, the California Film Commission, I've got a whole plan to completely turn it around, roll out the red carpet, just as we will for every business as they come to California.

We're gonna make this a friendly climate for business, including the media, movie, and TV, and entertainment business, just as for all others, instead of r- what we have now, which is total hostility to anyone trying to create jobs and opportunity in our state.

Cutting the red tape and rolling out the red carpet.