California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined “The Pitt” star Noah Wyle in Burbank to celebrate the expansion of the state’s film tax credit program, raising its cap from $330 million to $750 million.
“The world we invented is now competing against us, and we need to step up our game,” he said.
The Wednesday press conference came roughly nine months after Newsom first threw his support behind the cap raise, making it a key policy priority for 2025. Throughout a tumultuous budget process exacerbated by President Trump’s tariffs and threats to pull federal funding, the tax credit expansion remained unchanged in the governor’s budget proposal and in subsequent revisions.
The cap raise was made official when lawmakers passed a trailer bill codifying it this past Friday, following a deal between Newsom and Sacramento legislators on a $321 billion budget for the coming fiscal year.
A companion bill, Assembly Bill 1138, will codify changes to the program that will allow more productions such as half-hour TV shows and animation projects, among others, to qualify for the program while raising the tax credit rate on productions shooting in Los Angeles from 20% to 35%. That bill is expected to pass the state senate sometime this week.
Newsom and Wyle were joined by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, California Film Commission chief Colleen Bell, authors of AB 1138 and various entertainment labor leaders at the Ranch Lot, a $500 million redevelopment project on the former Warner Bros. Ranch lot that will add 16 soundstages and 326,000 square feet of office space. It is one of several soundstage complexes being developed across Los Angeles, including one in Inglewood that will be the broadcast center for the 2028 Olympics.
At the press conference, Wyle touted that his critically acclaimed HBO Max TV series “The Pitt,” which is currently shooting its second season, is primarily shot in Los Angeles. More than 1,400 people were employed during the show’s first season, including third-generation special effects coordinator Rob Nary, whose grandfather did special effects for “The Three Stooges.”
“You can build a soundstage in another state, but you won’t get the Rob Nary that comes with it,” he said. “This state has been generating talent for decades and decades and decades, and that apprenticeship means a lot when you are making a film or a television show.”
For industry lobbyists looking to preserve Hollywood’s local production jobs, the focus now shifts to Mayor Bass and the Los Angeles City Council for local reforms to on-location permit costs and processing.
Bass promised to “remove barriers so that when the tax credit goes into full bloom and production is back here in a major way, we make sure that there is no impediment on any level so that our industry can flourish.”
More to come…
