Tax credit day has arrived for a group of lucky TV producers who will be notified Monday that their projects have been approved for funding by the California Film Commission, marking the first allocations since the state more than doubled the funding and expanded eligibility for the Film & TV Tax Credit Program in July.
Deadline understands that letters are going out Monday to approved TV projects, though a public announcement isn’t expected until next week.
This will be the first allocations since June, when Dan Fogelman and Ryan Murphy collectively snapped up nearly $40 million in funding — which we believe represents the last of the available money from the previous fiscal year’s $330M allotment.
Season 1 of Murphy’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards at FX will get $17.9M in tax credits. Fogelman’s upcoming NFL drama, which will reunite him with This is Us star Mandy Moore, is set to receive $20.8M, per the California Film Commission’s list of approved projects.
With more than $190M in combined qualified expenditures between the shows, these are some of the largest incentives awarded to television projects in recent months. Also in June, the film commission agreed to give hefty sums to Sony, Netflix and 20th Century, among others, for a round of non-independent feature films.
The California Film Commission has not yet responded to Deadline’s request for comment regarding the allocation of those funds.
So far, the biggest tax credit given to a TV project since the beginning of the year has been the $22M doled out to Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith for relocating to California to film Season 2. A few other series including The Pitt, Paradise, The Rookie, High Potential and NCIS: Origins have also already been approved for tax credits this year for their upcoming seasons.
Monday’s latest approvals will likely run the gamut of projects as the category includes new, relocating, limited and recurring TV series as well as pilots.
It had been more than a decade since funding for the Film & TV Tax Credit Program had been expanded, and TV in particular was suffering because of it. Since series were approved for funding not only for the current season but for the entirety of a show’s run, it was becoming increasingly difficult for new projects to make the cut as more of the pie was earmarked for returning productions. Legislators have now added a provision to the law that stipulates a TV series must to return to production with 18 months to guarantee continued funding after which the money will be reallocated.
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