Holly wood East? Jersey could be movie mecca

THOMAS Edison is credited with inventing motion pictures at his studios in West Orange, NJ, in the late 1880s. So New Jersey could’ve become what Hollywood turned into. But it didn’t happen that way. In fact, until just recently Jersey wasn’t even considered among the top states offering attractive tax breaks to lure film and TV production.

That has now changed, according to folks involved in the film business in Jersey, where the appetite for more tax revenue has also made the state a haven for sports betting and will soon make it into a sanctuary for those who want to light up a heavily taxed joint.

Steve Gorelick, executive director of the NJ Motion Picture & Television Commission, says Jersey has raised its tax-incentive program for TV and films to $75 million.

Before that, the state had only $10 million a year to spread around, but even that money dried up in 2012.

The stinginess on the part of Jersey was probably a big reason why the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” was filmed in Brooklyn, even though the show depicts Atlantic City during Prohibition. Asbury Park, the other spot in Jersey with an old-fashioned boardwalk, bid on the series but was rebuffed.

Jersey is determined not to let that happen again.

“I think there’s so much production going on, that there’s plenty for everyone,” Gorelick told me by phone last week. Jersey, he believes, also has a geographic advantage because it is so close to New York.

Jersey, in fact, gets spillover from productions in New York thanks to a union rule that any shoots within 25 miles of Manhattan’s Columbus Circle don’t have to pay travel expenses for crews.

That makes spots in Jersey like Newark, which has a New York City flavor without a lot of the congestion, an ideal place to film.

Right now, NBC is producing “The Enemy Within” in New Jersey’s Bergen and Hudson counties, with some of the shooting in Newark and Jersey City, which are both close to Manhattan.

NBC has even set up a studio at the IZOD Center, which used to be home of the NBA New Jersey Nets but has been underused for many years. Warehouses throughout the state are also being looked at for conversion to TV facilities.

Gorelick says there are about a dozen major productions currently filming in Jersey or about to start, including an HBO miniseries called “The Plot Against America,” based on a Philip Roth novel of the same name, and an Amazon Studios series called “The Hunt” starring Al Pacino.

Under the tax incentives passed into law last July, New Jersey gives a 30 percent tax credit on purchases and rentals for film production. The tax incentive is 35 percent in some of the state’s southern-most counties.

But as hard as Jersey is trying to get deeper into the entertainment business, its efforts are still in the infant stages. “It’s one of the new kids on the block,” says John Bails, director at Forest Road Co. and executive VP of Film Production Capital.

Forest Road is involved in the business of selling tax credits earned by entertainment companies. And Film Production Capital, his other company, keeps a rating system of the tax incentives in vari- ous states across the country.

Bails says Jersey’s program is near the top in tax incentives, and Film Production Capital gives the state a three-star rating.

Georgia, Louisiana and Massachusetts are the only states with five stars, but their incentive programs have all been running for years. Nine states have a four-star rating, including Connecticut.

Film Production Capital also gives New York three stars. But New York and Jersey programs are different in a substantial way, Bails said. Jersey’s tax break is on everything associated with entertainment production.

New York’s doesn’t include breaks on the cost of performers, directors, producers and such. But New York does give a rebate on money spent, which Bails calls a “decent program but more limited.”

Despite the fact that a fair share of TV shows and movies has been made in Jersey over the decades, including MTV’s infamous “Jersey Shore” and HBO’s “The Sopranos,” the push is now in overdrive.

“Having production companies bring their studios to New Jersey is tremendous for the state,” Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, told me over breakfast at a Jersey Shore restaurant the other day.

“Jersey has a long history of being a cinematic hotbed.” Starting with Mr. Edison, in fact. Bernard is also in charge of the upcoming Asbury Park Music & Film Festival, which he sees as another way to get people in the state interested in movies and their production. The festival, with proceeds going to Asbury Park’s underserved children, runs from April 25 to April 28. Bernard used his clout to get legendary filmmakers, including Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Cameron Crowe, Danny Clinch and many others, to participate. Pot, sports betting and movies. If Jersey keeps this up, someday it might be a really fun place to live. (If you want to know more about the Asbury Park Music and Film Festival, go to https://www.apmff.org. I’m planning to be there sweeping the floors, collecting garbage or — perhaps — singing with Mr. Springsteen if he happens to show up.)