“The future of Texas film is $200 million brighter.”

.…From a Texas Monthly article by Dan Solomon on incentives passed by the Texas Legislature to attract film productions in the Lone Star State.

In its 2023 session, the Texas Legislature approved appropriations of $200 million for incentives to attract film production in the Lone Star State. The state is trying to compete with states like Georgia, who’ve gone full tilt to lure Hollywood productions to the local economy. 

“I don’t think most legislators understood [until this session] that Marvel hasn’t filmed a movie in California in 10 years,” Red Sanders, a TCU film graduate and president of Fort Worth-based Red Productions, told Texas Monthly. 

TM’s Solomon notes that Marvel Studios has made big investments in Georgia—which spends nearly $1 billion a year to attract film productions—and shoots much of its movie and TV projects in Georgia production facilities.

“Texas may not be competing with Georgia in the short term, but industry folks in the state can imagine getting there in the future,” Solomon writes, giving a big nod to Texas-based productions like “1883“—much of which was filmed in North Texas, as was “Yellowstone“—and “The Chosen,” whose producers built their own 30,000-foot sound stage in Midlothian.

That kind of investment can pay off for Texas in big ways.

“We employ doctors, we employ attorneys, we employ writers. We had an archery specialist on set the other day,” Chad Gundersen, co-executive producer of “The Chosen,” told TM. “We actually need more—more qualified people, more facilities, more hotels, more restaurants, all these things.”

Meanwhile, film productions keep rolling into North Texas, including the “1883” spinoff “1883: The Bass Reeves Story.” And Mansfield, the suburb south of Arlington, has plans to build Mansfield Super Studios, a film production studio to be built on 72 acres of undeveloped land, with restaurants, a hotel, and retail part of the project’s $70 million vision.

You can read Texas Monthly’s story by going here. 

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.

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