Warner Brothers’ Joker, which was filmed partly on location in Newark and Jersey City Brings Home Two Oscars

Early estimates show film created 575 jobs and resulted in $7.6 million in spending

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, Warner Brothers’ Joker, which was filmed partly on location in Newark and Jersey City, took home two Oscars during Sunday night’s Academy Awards presentation.

The box-office blockbuster stars Joaquin Phoenix, who won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.  The picture, which detailed the rise of the DC Comics character of the same name, also garnered the award for Best Original Music Score.

Preliminary estimates from the New Jersey Film and Television Commission show that “Joker” created some 575 jobs in New Jersey and resulted in an estimated $7.6 million in direct spending in the state.  Though the most decorated of the 2019 releases, it was just one of hundreds of productions filmed in the Garden State last year.

The film and television industry has grown exponentially in the past 18 months with the reinstitution by Gov. Phil Murphy of the Film and Digital Media Tax Credit.  In 2019, film and television productions spent in excess of $350 million In New Jersey, a dramatic increase over the revenue figures of $121 million in 2018 and $67 million in 2017.

In January, the Governor signed an expansion of the credit, extending the program’s tenure by an additional five years so that it will remain in place until July 1, 2028, and adding $25 million to the annual cap on qualified film production expenses, bringing it to $100 million per year. This more robust program is expected to attract significant studio development in New Jersey, and other companies ancillary to the industry – permanent brick and mortar businesses that will create even more job growth for our residents.

“The 2019 production year was our most successful ever,” noted Steven Gorelick, Executive Director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission. “This is great news for the thousands of talented film industry professionals who live in New Jersey and now have increased opportunities to work right where they live. With growing interest from productions of all sizes, 2020 will be even better for New Jersey film workers and our state’s creative economy.  The future of film and television in New Jersey is bright.”

But all are no sold on the Film and Digital Media Tax Credit.  The Sunday night’s Oscar Award telecast should have left a bitter taste in the mouths of New Jersey taxpayers, Senator Joe Pennacchio said.

“On a night when the entertainment industry elite lectured Americans on priorities, politics and principals, New Jersey didn’t even get a ‘thank you’ for the $2 million from hard-working taxpayers in our state that helped finance the filming of ‘Joker,’” said Pennacchio (R-26). “They didn’t need our money to make the movie, but they gladly accepted it.”

“Our residents are saddled by the most onerous taxes in the nation,” said Pennacchio. “Taxpayers can’t catch a break from Trenton, but Murphy is tossing money by the millions to studios grossing billions of dollars, and actors making $20 million per film. This is a Hollywood-style scandal playing out on the streets of the Garden State.”

A recent audit of Georgia’s largest-in-the-nation film tax credit program determined revenue generated by the program was not sufficient to offset the cost of the credits. A state agency was over-stating the economic activity attributed to the 15-year-old motion picture credit.

Another study, in of all places Southern California, often cited by Pennacchio and completed by USC in 2019 found “uninspiring employment effects” of film tax credits in 30 states. A headline in the Sacramento Bee declared: “Taxpayer’s don’t get much when states like California hand tax breaks to Hollywood, study says.”

“We have more than enough data to prove these give-aways don’t accomplish anything but fatten the wallets of the industry’s big players,” Pennacchio said. “While families in our state struggle to pay the highest property taxes in the U.S., we’re handing over some of their tax money to billionaire movie mogul Steven Spielberg to remake ‘West Side Story.’ It defies logic.”