Across the United States, the volume of film and TV production on location slowed in the first quarter of this year, with one state being an exception: New Jersey.
The Garden State saw gains in both the number of films (up 45 percent year over year) as well as production spending (up 37 percent), while other major markets either saw declines or were relatively flat, according to production intelligence platform ProdPro’s quarterly report released Tuesday.
The tracking company attributes New Jersey’s gains to an “increase in spin-off activity” with more series being filmed in the state, which is considered “Hollywood East” due to its combination of tax incentives, studio infrastructure and available crew. And that’s before three major studio complexes are completed. Netflix is investing $1 billion to build out its East Coast base of 12 sound stages on the former site of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Paramount signed a 10-year lease in October to occupy 85,000 square feet of 1888 Studios under construction in Bayonne, while Lionsgate is set as the anchor tenant for Great Point Studios in Newark.
Notable features filmed in the state include Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi feature Disclosure daywhich is positioned as a major summer tentpole from Universal when it hits theaters in June. The biopic about the young Sylvester Stallone is produced by Amazon MGM I play Rockywhich will open 50 years after the boxing film hit theaters in November, and was filmed in the state. (“In a normal world, we would have shot this movie in New York and Pennsylvania,” the film’s producer, Toby Emmerich, recently said.) Hollywood Reporter. “We ended up filming it in New Jersey because they got the best tax deal.”)
The report’s numbers showed that California remained in first place overall with production spending of $1.48 billion that rose 2 percent year-over-year even as the number of films declined 14 percent. A long-time traditional contender was New York, which also saw a 14 percent decline in bud counts while keeping production spending essentially flat year-over-year.
Since California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law doubling the state’s tax incentive to $750 million annually last year, the state Film Commission has attracted projects from other regions and also incentivized studios to tell stories centered on California locations. (Big tax credit projects include filming a Snoop Dogg biopic in Los Angeles, A Baywatch Shooting at Venice Beach and Ang Lee’s Gold Rush filming near Sacramento.)
Illinois, a market that hosts three NBC chicago Procedures as well as foreign currencies Bearstarted the year flat in terms of shooting numbers and saw a slight increase in production spending year over year, according to ProdPro figures. The state revealed in March that it had increased full-year film production expenses to $703 million in 2025, up from $560 million in 2019 before the pandemic, a figure Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office described as an “all-time high.”
New Mexico and Georgia, which had been seen as emerging locations for major features and TV series in recent years, saw a notable decline in the number of films and production spending to start 2026. One major sound stage operator recently noted that there has been a trend in features returning to traditional hubs in the past year.
“Los Angeles and New York saw production rise with other markets like Albuquerque, New Mexico, New Orleans, Louisiana, Atlanta, Georgia and a little bit of Chicago, Illinois falling,” Victor Coleman, CEO of Hudson Pacific and owner of Netflix-operated Sunset Studios, said at the CITY conference in Miami on March 2. What we see is the flow of production.
Overall, the U.S. saw a 10 percent decline in the number of films in the first quarter of this year, according to ProdPro, even as production spending increased 1 percent. Declines were mostly on the features side (down 21 percent) while TV episode activity increased 4 percent.
