California Tax Incentives: Chris Evans Starrer ‘Gray Man’, Jessica Chastain’s ‘Losing Clementine’ & Untitled Jordan Peele Pic Clinch Big Bucks
Movie theaters are still shuttered for the most part in what is usually blockbuster season, but some potentially big flicks just got some big bucks to shoot in California, eventually.
Netflix’s Russo Brothers-directed The Gray Man, the Jessica Chastain starrer Losing Clementine and an untitled Jordan Peele project set at Universal were among the nine films allocated $50,053,000 collectively in the last round of Golden State tax credits. Though production has been slower than expected to re-start as California has seen coronavirus surges in the last month, the nine films are all still anticipated to turn the cameras on by early next year.
As you can see in the chart below, the Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling-starring thriller The Gray Man snagged the largest sum in the first round of what is being termed ‘Program 3.0’ of the incentive initiative.
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With a clean $20 million, the movie (which Deadline revealed last month) received just a touch less than what Captain Marvel and Sherlock Holmes 3 got from the California Film Commission administered program in 2017 and 2019, respectively. Still, this looks to be the most ever handed out to a streamer, even one that is firmly in the tentpole business. Correspondingly, the $200 million-budgeted Gray Man aims to bring in more than $102 million in below-the-line wages and other sanctioned expenditures to California.
Among those successfully selected on Friday, the Jessica Chastain-starring Losing Clementine, the Octavia Spencer-led sci-fi pic Invasion, Nightfall, NBA drama Sweetwater, Untitled Jimmy Warden Project and the Untitled Peele Project, all picked up a little more credit by committing to film outside the Los Angeles 30-Mile Studio Zone. Cali’s tax incentive program adds a minimum of 5% more credit if productions film a “significant” amount of their movie outside the City of Angels.
“We are thrilled to be part of the new Program 3.0 and to be able to base Losing Clementine production in California,” said Losing Clementine producer and Sentient Entertainment president Renée Tab today. “We searched other locations, but thanks to the tax credit we can film here at home where the story is set.”
Overall, the five indie films and four “non-independent” films, as the CFC calls them, are projected to bring in about $284 million dollars in qualified state spending. Combined, the estimate is that the films will hire 1,340 crew members, 342 cast and 14,397 background actors/stand ins. However, COVID-19 restrictions and health concerns may see background actors/stand-ins become a relic of another era.
Though on the rebound from the previously meager California tax credits scheme, the home of Hollywood continues to struggle to seduce big movies from heavily incentivized markets such as Georgia, New York state, Vancouver, and the UK.
In that context, this latest round of the program was good to Gray Man. And yet, the Russos helmed pic isn’t the biggest ever winner from the scheme. Neither for that matter is Captain Marvel. The two top spots still belong to the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee and Space Jam 2 with $22.4 million and $21.8 million in credits, respectively.
The window was open on this latest round of allocations on July 13 – 15, with applications to be submitted digitally only. The Collen Bell-led CFC says that 81 films applied last month for the tax credits, before nine made the conditional cut. The most recent small screen awards were announced on August 3, with a reboot of HBO’s In Treatment and TBS’ Daniel Radcliffe-fronted Miracle Workers moving out West too.
The next round of TV applications can be filed from September 28 – 30 for relocating projects and October 5 – 7 for recurring projects. The COVID-19 crisis remains a caveat of when production must commence.
The next round of big screen applications can go in the CFC from January 25 – 27, 2021, a time that under normal health circumstances would see a lot of Hollywood movers and shakers out at Sundance in Utah’s Park City. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely next year.
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