Free Money WORKS!

Sadly ...

... California’s incentive program just isn’t set up to compete for big-budget blockbusters. To date, just three of the feature film recipients of the state’s new film tax credit have reported budgets more than $100 million, and only one has completed production. ...

Georgia, the world’s undisputed king of blockbuster film production, was home to 17 films that made last year’s list of 100 top-grossing films, followed closely by the UK with 16, Canada with 13, and California in fourth with 12 – only three of which received state tax credits. ...

Georgia set a record for spending on its incentive program last year – $606 million, which is the largest amount ever spent by any country in North America or Europe in a single year – and breaking the old record of $504 million, which Georgia set the previous year. ...

Only seven live-action films shot in California made the list of 100 top-grossing films last year, but four of them – including La La Land – didn’t qualify for the state’s tax incentives. Five others shot in the state that made the list last year were animated films, which don’t even qualify for California tax incentives, and those five were the only films shot in the state whose budgets exceeded $100 million....

What’s not covered by California’s incentives program is another reason big-budget blockbusters aren’t being attracted to the state. “Spending on actors, directors, writers and other above-the-line costs are not covered under California’s film incentive, as they are in other top filming locations,” the report notes. “Creative considerations aside, film projects will locate where their budgets can be maximized.” ...

Last year, an official of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers told me, "The studios are going to take the work to places that pay the most in subsidies. That's just the way it's going to be."

In other words, our fine entertainment conglomerates are people who are moochers. (You know, the kind of welfare chiselers we're all supposed to hate). But unlike their flesh-and-blood brothers and sisters, the conglomerates have plenty of leverage to collect the big welfare checks that they crave. And so they do.

California has this policy of not subsidizing productions that are already produced in the state. So sit-coms have been out of the Free-Money loop, also animation, despite the Guild's lobbying efforts to make it otherwise. (The best we could do was achieve subsidies for animated visual effects).

But the "no subsidies for work already here" rule under which the Golden State operates will soon blow up in California's face. Those big budget animated features, particularly the ones produced by DreamWorks Animation, stand a good chance of moving to localities that hand out wads of Free Money. (DWA's Captain Underpants has already scampered off to get subsidies, up there in Canada).

If California doesn't wake up and smell the hot, bubbling economic realities, feature animation could soon go the way of Marvel's live-action blockbusters, getting made in a Vancouver or Atlanta suburb.