Louisiana, once one of Georgia’s top competitors for attracting film and television projects, could soon get out of the incentives game it helped pioneer.
Lawmakers in Baton Rouge could dissolve the state’s incentive program for Hollywood as part of a broader tax overhaul. Louisiana was the first state in the country to create film subsidies, introducing its program in 1992 and expanding it significantly 10 years later.
The Louisiana incentive spurred an influx of productions, both big and small, and galvanized developers to build new soundstages and other infrastructure to meet crews’ needs. Other states followed their lead. By 2010, 45 states — including Georgia — had some form of incentive.
The Louisiana House of Representatives voted 87-12 last week on a broader tax bill that includes the elimination of the incentive, which offers a rebate on production costs anywhere between 25%-40%. The bill would also sunset credits for digital media production, sound recording and renovating historic buildings, among others. If the Louisiana Senate and governor approve the bill, these programs will end June 30, 2025.
Georgia’s film tax credit, now the state’s largest business incentive, has attracted hundreds of projects to the state, including tentpoles like “Avengers: Infinity War” and the recently released “Red One” with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
It’s too early to tell the impact that Louisiana’s decision could have on Georgia’s film industry. Historically, however, Georgia has benefited from other states reducing or doing away with their film incentives.
When Florida and North Carolina changed their programs, many of the businesses, crews and productions relocated to the Peach State, said Kelsey Moore, the executive director of the Georgia Screen Entertainment Coalition, a lobbying group representing major studios and other key players.
J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University economics professor who has studied the state’s film incentives, suspects the impact may be minimal based on the differences between both states’ credits.
If producers want to shoot in Georgia over Louisiana, they will, Bradbury said.
“The industry is going to operate how it’s going to operate,” said Bradbury, a critic of Georgia’s incentive. “It’s going to go wherever it’s cheapest to operate.”
Louisiana potentially getting out of incentivizing Hollywood comes as California has increased its perks for filmmakers and as European nations have poached business from the U.S. by offering supersized subsidies and cheaper labor.
Credit: AP Photos
Credit: AP Photos
The competition between Georgia and Louisiana used to be fierce. The Pelican State’s landing of much of the filming of “Ray,” the Oscar-winning biopic of Georgia’s Ray Charles, was a particular irritant to state leaders two decades ago. The loss of “Ray” helped prompt state lawmakers to pass Georgia’s first film tax credit in 2005.
Today, Georgia doesn’t really consider itself as competition against Louisiana, Moore said. Rather, the state is competing with larger markets, like the United Kingdom and Canada.
Louisiana is also affected by the same market forces as Georgia. Between 2021 and the start of 2023, streamers and studios spent heavily to build their content libraries. Then twin strikes by the actors and writers halted production industrywide.
Since those strikes were resolved, producers have slashed their spending and started shooting more of their content overseas, leaving thousands of U.S.-based industry workers without work.
AMC Networks’ New Orleans-set series “Interview with the Vampire,” for example, filmed its first season in Louisiana. The second season, which began airing in May, was largely filmed in Prague, with the Czech Republic city standing in for World War II-era Paris.
Simonette Berry, the business agent for the labor union representing film and television crew members in Louisiana, southern Mississippi and Mobile, Alabama, said the debate over Louisiana’s film incentive is similar to one that sprung up in Georgia this year.
During the most recent legislative session, Georgia lawmakers tried to cap the amount of tax credits that production companies can transfer to another party each year to 2.5% of the previous year’s state budget.
The marketplace of film incentives could just be following the path of other industries: toward consolidation.
“It used to just be Hollywood 50 years ago. It was rare that they filmed outside of it, and then they expanded into all these other markets,” said Tim Halloran, a professor at Georgia Tech and longtime consumer marketing professional. “If it follows the path of most industries, you’ll see a couple of main players emerge, and then those smaller, less attractive players will go by the wayside.”
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