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Louisiana is rewriting the script on how it attracts film and television productions.
Last week, Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a bill—Senate Bill 232, sponsored by state Sen. Adam Bass, R-Bossier City—overhauling the state’s motion picture tax credit system. The new law shifts oversight to Louisiana Economic Development and eliminates rigid spending caps.
Jason Waggenspack, president of Film Louisiana, tells Daily Report that the move has the potential to be transformative for Louisiana’s film industry. Film Louisiana is the state’s film and television trade association.
“We feel that this is going to have a massive impact,” Waggenspack says.
Under the new structure, LED’s new Office of Entertainment Industry Development is responsible for overseeing and adjusting the state’s film tax credit program. Previously, the program was overseen by a division of the governor’s office.
The new law also eliminates current tax credit caps, which limit the amount of spending that qualifies for incentives at $20 million in production costs and $3 million per person in payroll costs. Now, the state is offering production companies a tax credit of up to 40% on eligible in-state expenditures for approved projects.
The state will continue to limit the total value of its film tax credits at $125 million per year.
The changes come at a time when Louisiana’s once-booming film industry has seen a steep decline. Activity has slowed to a crawl in recent years as production companies have increasingly turned to cheaper international filming destinations, according to Waggenspack.
The new law aims to buck that trend by empowering LED to administer film tax credits with greater speed and greater flexibility. That flexibility could make Louisiana more attractive to heavyweight players in the world of entertainment, as the division of the governor’s office that previously oversaw the program had less discretion to adapt incentives on a case-by-case basis.
“We can go in and make some quick changes as we see fit to allow for bigger businesses in the film industry to come and sustain themselves in Louisiana,” Waggenspack says. “For example, if a Netflix or a Universal Studios wants to set up shop here and spend $100 million a year over the next three to five years, they can go to LED and make a deal that allows for it to be more opportunistic for them to do that.”
Though the new law officially takes effect on July 1, the industry is already taking notice. Waggenspack says he’s already fielding calls and emails from Hollywood.
“We’re really inching ourselves back up to being one of the No. 1 places to shoot a movie or television series,” he says. “I think Hollywood’s beginning to recognize that, and I think production companies are going to begin bringing projects here sooner rather than later.”
Last year, lawmakers weighed eliminating Louisiana’s film tax credit program in its entirety but ultimately opted to preserve the program while reducing its annual cap from $150 million to $125 million.
