Newsom’s office announces 41 new projects receive California film, TV tax credit
The Governor’s Office announced Tuesday that 41 projects would receive funding through Newsom’s Program 4.0, an expansion of the existing California film and TV tax credit program. This round of the program has thus far awarded tax credits to 170 projects and is expected to provide a $6.6 billion boost to California’s economy.
Staff wages will be paid from a pool of $352 million and the 41 new projects combined are expected to create 6,198 cast and crew job openings and employ 13,153 background performers.
Veronique Vowell, a supervising location manager at Disney, reflected on the boost in job openings after the series “Tracker” was relocated from Vancouver to Los Angeles so it could benefit from the state tax credits.
“We feel very fortunate as we know that many of our comrades in arms are still unemployed. Keep the California Tax Credit Program going; it creates jobs,” Vowell said.
The tax credit does not only benefit big Hollywood film studios like Disney. Of the 41 chosen projects, 30 are not major studio productions, but rather indie films with budgets of less than $10 million. And many are filming outside the Los Angeles studio radius.
Academy Award winner and owner of Artist Equity production company Ben Affleck said the tax credit program allows his production company to continue making films locally and maintain access to the “best and most experienced” Hollywood staff.
Titles of note in this round of funding include Disney’s “Hexed”, Artist Equity’s indie headliner “Gingerbread Men”, and a Snoop Dogg biopic. Previous tax credit projects have included Academy Best Picture winner “One Battle After Another” and Emmy Best Drama Series winner “The Pitt”.
