California's bigger tax credits reel in 'Jumanji,' Warner films

The doubling of California's film and TV tax credits to $750 million a year is showing promise in bringing production back to the state.

Ten movies from major studios were among 52 films awarded credits in the latest funding from the California Film Commission, the state's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, announced Tuesday.

The projects, with eligible spending ranging from under $10 million to the $162 million planned for a Jumanji sequel, are forecast to inject $1.4 billion into the state's economy.

"We're seeing extraordinary momentum right now," Colleen Bell, the commission's executive director, said in an interview. 

The aim of the credits is to stem the flight of film and TV work from California, the home of the movie industry, to typically lower-cost locations that also offer government assistance, like Georgia, Canada and the U.K. The loss of jobs, exacerbated by the 2023 actor and writers strikes, along with cuts at studios, led California to boost the tax incentives from an earlier annual cap of $330 million. 

According to the commission, the 52 movie projects selected will result in 1,664 shooting days eligible for rebates in 2025 and 2026.

"We were losing market share and something had to be done," Bell said. 

Four projects funded in the last round plan to spend more than $100 million in the state. They include Sony Pictures' latest Jumanji, a family drama from Warner Bros., an untitled Universal Pictures film from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who together directed Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Heat 2, a follow-up to a 1995 crime thriller by Michael Mann.

"We are delighted to be able to bring a large, old school, big screen movie to shoot in California, thanks to the newly expanded California tax credit," Tom Rothman, chief executive officer of the motion picture group at Sony, said in the statement. 

Filming worldwide has begun to pick up, with 450 new movie and TV projects shooting globally in the third quarter, an increase of 11% over the same period last year, according to a report from industry tracker ProdPro. 

The weakening of the U.S. dollar in the first half of 2025 against major foreign currencies has reduced the financial advantage of outbound productions, ProdPro said in its report. 

In Los Angeles, shooting days fell 13% in the third quarter, driven mainly by a decline in reality TV production, according to the local permit office FilmLA. Feature film production rose 10% from a year earlier.

"It will take a little while for new incentive-backed projects to get underway and be reflected in our data, so we were not surprised to see on-location production continue to slip this summer," Philip Sokoloski, vice president of FilmLA, said in a statement. "Fortunately, we've already begun to see early signs of these incentives having their desired effect."

President Donald Trump has suggested applying tariffs to films shot outside the U.S. — but the industry has instead advocated for a federal tax incentive that would be added to state-level rebates. Bell said she was encouraged by discussions at the federal level about a national production incentive. 

"If we could add a stackable incentive on top of California's credits, we're unbeatable," she said.