NYC needs to get back in the movies
Late last year, “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, the eighth live-action Spider-Man movie, crossed $1 billion at the global box office. The Spider-Man movies are based on the comic book character Peter Parker. Parker lives in Queens and commutes to Manhattan for his job at the Daily Bugle. The Marvel Comics artists, Stan Lee included, looked out their windows for inspiration and made the city a character in the comics. While it would have been cheaper to film the motion picture’s initial 2002 adaptation elsewhere, the brilliant director, Sam Raimi’s vision required our streets, alleys and fire escapes.
The bulk of the $200 million budget of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was spent where it was shot — not in Queens or Manhattan, but in Atlanta.
Film commissions recruit movies because of the massive financial windfall to local economies. New York City once had the world’s first and best film commission. It actively recruited any potential movie or TV show and then, strengthened with determined support from City Hall, negotiated interdepartmental municipal cooperation, ensuring productions had the logistical support required to make each shooting day possible. Yet today, unlike Albany, Syracuse and Buffalo, New York City doesn’t have a film and TV commission. Instead, the city has an underfunded and overworked city agency called the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment: MOME. Years ago, MOME swallowed the commission and was given new responsibilities without significant increases to the former commission’s budget or staffing.
MOME’s self-stated reason for being currently reads: “The mission of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) is to ensure New York City continues to be the creative capital of the world by supporting film, television, theatre, music, publishing, advertising, and digital content and ensuring those industries work for New Yorkers.” As complex and cumbersome as that mission statement is, it’s actually incomplete since restaurants, bars, nightlife and the application and distribution of New York City press passes have of late been added to this beleaguered department’s growing catalog of responsibilities.
The industry’s success should be enough to fund a dedicated and renewed film commission given a clear and simple mission: create jobs and showcase our community in film and on television.
A recent report by MOME cited prepandemic levels of spending and employment from the film industry in 2019 at $18 billion in wages spent, employing over 185,000 workers. The average annual salary in TV and film is roughly $96,000 per year. The total economic output of the film and TV industry in 2019 was a staggering $82 billion.
But it could and should be more. The city needs a dedicated film commission to fight for every opportunity, because each production creates hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of jobs. With growth, opportunities abound, but within a seniority-based, union-protected workforce, compression stymies the next generation. Every movie’s shooting schedule has a wrap date. All TV shows end. We who work in production need the next show, the next movie, and more after that. Streaming services are currently booming; we’re told it’s a new golden age. The opportunity is now, but not guaranteed to New York City.
We rarely get big movies like “I Am Legend” or “The Taking of Pelham 123” anymore. Larger movies spend more money in less time but are harder than TV shows. They require massive amounts of cooperation, which has diminished as MOME’s workload has increased. The original film commission vowed to assist productions through its office’s “one-stop shopping,” but that mission is currently impossible.
I know many experienced motion picture producers who cringe at the thought of shooting here. Our city has lost a prized and previously earned possession, its reputation. It is a downward trend that portends a disastrous scenario. Considering the growing difficulties of location shooting in New York, while visual effects houses perfect cheaper ways to digitally create New York City’s locations, why would networks and studios continue to shoot here, the most expensive location in the world? How would we replace, not just the show “Billions,” but, the billions of dollars of real money spent in our city?
The mayor of New York City has powers that rival a superhero’s. Through the comic books and movies, Peter Parker is repeatedly advised, “With great power comes great responsibility.” New York City needs the mayor’s help, and Gotham requires a dedicated film commission led by an experienced and qualified commissioner. Continued success is not preordained, nor guaranteed. The director of those first three “Spider-Man” movies, Sam Raimi, is currently finishing his latest superhero movie, “Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” In the comics and movies, Strange lives at 177A Bleecker St. in the heart of Greenwich Village.
Marvel shot it in London. By rebooting the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting, Eric Adams can be a real superhero and restore New York City as the rightful film and TV capital of the world.