California continues to make progress in the fight against “runaway production” as its expanded Film & TV Tax Credit Program 2.0 lures more big-budget films to the Golden State.
The California Film Commission announced that “Ford v. Ferrari” (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.) and “Coming 2 America” (Paramount Pictures) are among the nine projects selected for the latest round of film tax credits. They join a growing list of big-budget wins for Program 2.0, including “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Bumblebee,” “Call of the Wild” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
These types of projects had proved especially prone to runaway production and were ineligible for California tax credits under the state’s first-generation incentive program, which was closed to films with total budgets exceeding $75 million.
The action-drama “Ford v. Ferrari” (20th Century Fox) is on track to spend more than $78 million in California just on qualified expenditures (defined as wages to below-the-line workers and payments for equipment/vendors). A total of 67 shooting days are planned in-state, with well over half in regions outside the Los Angeles 30-mile zone including Kern, Orange, Santa Rosa and San Bernardino counties. California will double for locales including Florida, Michigan, England and France.
The comedy sequel “Coming 2 America” (Paramount) starring Eddie Murphy is on track to spend $64.6 million in-state on qualified expenditures.
“California’s expanded tax credit program was successful from day one in attracting TV projects and mid-range features, and it’s succeeding over the long term with big-budget film projects like those announced today,” said California Film Commission executive director Amy Lemisch. “While our tax credit is more modest than what’s offered by some competitors, filmmakers understand that California can still provide the best value thanks to our superior talent, infrastructure, weather and locations.”
In addition to “Ford v. Ferrari” and “Coming 2 America,” seven other feature films–five from studios and two independents–were approved conditionally for the current $55.5 million round of tax credits (the third and final film round for fiscal year-three of the expanded Program 2.0). They are an untitled Jordan Peele film (from Deep Cuts, LLC) that will shoot extensively outside the 30-mile zone in Santa Cruz; the new “Scarface” remake (Valet Productions LLC), “Deadwood” (Calling Grace Productions) which is inspired by the HBO series of the same title; “Grand-Daddy Day Care” (Pop Pop Productions); “Marry Me” (Universal City Studios); “Pandora” (Pandora Movie LLC); and “The New Mrs. Keller” (Lakeshore Entertainment Group). A total of 39 film projects applied for tax credits during the March 7–13 application period.
Full Lineup Set For AFI Fest; Official Selections Span 44 Countries, Include 9 Best International Feature Oscar Submissions
The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 23-27. Rounding out the slate of already announced titles are such highlights as September 5 directed by Tim Fehlbaum, All We Imagine As Light directed by Payal Kapadia, The Luckiest Man in America directed by Samir Oliveros (AFI Class of 2019), Zurawski v. Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence and directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader (AFI Class of 1969). A total of 158 films are set to screen at the 38th edition of AFI Fest.
Of the official selections, 48% are directed by women and non-binary filmmakers and 26% are directed by BIPOC filmmakers.
Additional festival highlights include documentaries Architecton directed by Victor Kossakovsky; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie directed by David Bushell; Devo directed by Chris Smith about the legendary new wave provocateurs; Gaucho Gaucho directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw; Group Therapy directed by Neil Berkeley with Emmy® winner Neil Patrick Harris and Tig Notaro; No Other Land directed by a Palestinian-Israeli team comprised of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; Pavements directed by Alex Ross Perry; and Separated directed by Errol Morris. Notable narrative titles include Black Dog (Gou Zen) directed by Guan Hu; Bonjour Tristesse directed by Durga Chew-Bose with Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny; Caught By The Tides directed by Jia Zhangke; Hard Truths directed by Mike Leigh with... Read More