This is Hollywood showtime at the California Capitol.
The state’s entertainment industry has spent months seeking help from Sacramento to stem the decline in film and television production and save thousands of jobs.
After months of speeches and promises from civil servants this week, the two bills were meant to boost the troubling business.
The bill aims to increase California’s incentives for film and television production to be competitive with other states and countries by increasing the number of eligible spending by up to 35% of eligible production types.
This is a potential lifeline for the entertainment industry, and has been hit by a slower production in recent years due to the 2023 pandemic, dual writer and actor strikes, studios, recent bushfires in Southern California, and a pull back to production from Golden State.
“I don’t want to be the aerospace automotive industry in Detroit or California,” said Rebecca Line, president of the Entertainment Union Coalition and Western Executive Director of the American Directors Guild. “I think California will flourish when our industry flourishes.”
The bill won unanimous votes from the state Senate’s Revenue and Tax Committee and the Congressional Arts and Entertainment Committee.
But last year, Gov. Despite Gavin Newsom’s initial call, the two bills have more than doubled the money allocated to the state’s film and television tax credit program, and the passage of the two bills is far from a deal they made.
Critics have been skeptical of the film and television tax credit program since it was featured under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009. Some say that tax credits are a corporate giveaway and don’t provide as much economic value as their supporters argue.
“We’re accusing the free market,” said Wayne Weingarden, a senior fellow in business and economics at the Pacific Institute, a California-based think tank that advocates for the free market. “This is not the right way to get a growth-enhancing fiscal business environment that accelerates employment growth.”
Additionally, California is currently facing a challenging economic outlook as it supports tariff-related pressures on state revenue and stock market volatility, as it supports potential cuts in federal funding.
Everything forces difficult questions for lawmakers about which priorities to fund.
In a recent post on X, California Democratic voters said that California Democratic voters should be furious that we are not spending more on housing, allowing older people to become homeless and many children to fall into poverty.
Jackson reached by phone and said expanding film and television tax credits is a valuable policy, but state lawmakers must consider what they have to sacrifice for them, especially as state budgets are under stress.
“If we were back in an era where we had more money than we could spend, this would be easy,” Jackson said. “But it’s time to bring people back to reality. This shouldn’t be just a slam dunk for people.”
Hollywood workers argue that film and television tax expansion and television tax credits will generate economic returns across the industry, with ripple effects touching not only tourism, but small businesses such as dry cleaners, florists and caterers who rely on entertainment spending. And after years of struggle, workers say the industry is at an inflection point.
That led to major lobbying on the part of Hollywood.
In support of the bill, more than 100,000 letters have been sent to individual state lawmakers, and an additional 22,000 letters have been sent to the Senate Laws and Demands and Tax Committee.
Like studio executives, its lobbyists and film ASSN, dozens of representatives from all major entertainment industry unions trekked to Sacramento to help legislate. Trade Group.
It’s a kind of show of the force that two Bills co-sponsors, Sen. Ben Allen and Congress member Rick Chavez Zbur, spoke to the crowd last week at a recording facility at Burbank’s Evergreen Studios, urging entertainment workers to contact their representatives.
“It’s going to be a battle to get this done due to headwinds,” Allen told the crowd. A mention of the law was enough to elicit applause and cheers from the audience.
Industry insiders and lawmakers, including Burbank City Hall, have sought to fend off criticism that this is a gift for businesses.
They describe them as employment bills that reward the most employment-generating works, and do not allow businesses to use tax credits until production is over.
California currently offers a 20% to 25% tax credit to offset the eligible production costs spent on film crews and buildings. Producers can apply credit to tax liabilities in California. It’s important to raise your credit to 35%, supporters say. Projects filmed elsewhere in the state could earn 40% credit.
The law expands the kind of production that is qualified, including large competitive shows such as animated films, shorts, and series. Independent productions will be allocated 10% of the total program amount, starting from the current 8%.
“In some respects, headwinds actually strengthened the bill,” Allen told The Times. “They forced very careful, intense, thoughtful, targeted conversations and negotiations.”
Outside of Hollywood, the bill is supported by the California Labor Federation, whose executive council voted unanimously in February to support the law, President Lorena Gonzalez said.
The organization doesn’t always support tax credits, but the federation has always supported films and television shows, she said.
“The fact is that Hollywood is a very organized and unique situation,” Gonzalez said. “We want to keep those jobs here to maintain these good union jobs and middle class lives that have been developed as a result.”
The lobbying has led to an extraordinary alliance, especially as the strikes sparked both the studio and Hollywood unions gather on the same side. However, both groups have cooperated with previous film and television tax credit proposals.
In a letter to the leaders of the Congressional Committee on Income and Taxation, the film ASSN film. Charles H. Livkin’s chief executive wrote that changes to the film and television tax credit program “helps attract more production and work in California.”
If the bill was enacted, the studio would submit more applications to the California Film Committee, writing that it would “lead to find more productions in California, creating and maintaining good jobs for Californians.”
But even within Hollywood’s overall push, there are different priorities among stakeholders. During the Burbank City Hall meeting, post-production workers and music scoring experts called for a carve-out, noting that other states and countries are currently offering concrete rebates for the work.
As a result, the production of these workers has dropped sharply. The average number of scheduled recording days for LA scoring stage sampling has so far been 11 days in 2025, far from the average 127 days in 2022 at the peak of the streaming boom.
Many scoring work has moved to Europe and even Nashville, but some post-production work has been diverted to places like Canada and London.
“It’s going to take the village,” Rotter told The Times. “We have one shot on this now.”
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