When California was still a Golden State, the idea that movie and television production would film anywhere else was ludicrous.
Unless you were determined to film in the real Rome or the real New York City, everything necessary for your production was right there in California. You had ocean, desert, mountains, small towns, big cities, industry, farming, wineries, and the magic and muscle of the studio, along with its back lot, crews, and visual effects department.
Once upon a time, one of the great things about working in movies and TV was that if you lived in Los Angeles, even if you worked on a New York-set show like Friends or Seinfeld, you could commute from your L.A. home every day.
Those days are long over, and Democrat-run California continues to lose productions even after failed Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) doubled its incentives to keep production in his failed state.
After more than doubling his tax incentives from $330 million to $750 million in July of last year, when compared to 2024, California still saw a 20-percent decrease in local production during the fourth quarter of 2025.
The state hopes these new incentives will really kick in next year. Fer realsies this time.
Things are so bad in California that it barely remained in first place for movie and TV production during the last quarter of last year. According to the far-left Hollywood Reporter, 71 productions filmed in California during the last quarter generated $1.356 billion in revenue.
New York, however, was right behind with 63 productions and a $1.075 billion spend.
New Jersey, Georgia, Illinois, and New Mexico hosted a combined 64 productions, resulting in a total spend of $972 million.
Imagine what it takes to move your production to another state — all the inconvenience and expense. But California is such a disaster, nearly twice as many productions are now shot outside California. Things are so bad in the former Golden State that studios are building permanent production facilities in places like New Jersey and Georgia. They obviously want all the way out.
One of the attractions to California, reaching back more than a hundred years to the founding of Hollywood, was the weather, which you could not get anywhere else. No matter what, it is always dry and sunny in Southern California. Still, people are fleeing to the uncertain climates of states like Illinois and New Jersey.
One can only imagine what the ongoing threat of this retroactive wealth tax is doing to the thinking of studio heads, producers, executives, and super-wealthy artists. Right now, the tax is aimed at billionaires, but everyone understands that once you open that door, it’s a slippery slope that hits everyone.
California is a failed state with massive budget deficits, high taxes, insane regulations, and, thanks to environmental extremism, is under constant threat of catastrophic but preventable (with sane environmental policies) disasters like the recent wildfires that leveled entire neighborhoods.
The incentives to live in Newsom Land are all gone … unless you’re an illegal alien. Then, California is rife with incentives.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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