＂Too Much Power In Hollywood＂ - Netflix DITCHES California For New Jersey Over HUGE Tax Breaks
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
190.54044
Summary
New Jersey is on track to become the top 3 film destination, says the CEO of the N.J. Economic Development Authority. Adam Kownacki and Tom Brolley discuss why New Jersey should be the next Hollywood.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
New Jersey poised to soon become the top three film destination, says the CEO.
00:00:06.380
Now, in the history of this, if you're familiar with it, I did a video on this about a year and a half, two years ago,
00:00:11.100
about the fact that the headquarters, Hollywood, used to be in New Jersey, and Thomas Edison ran it.
00:00:18.160
And now, it looks like it's going back to New Jersey.
00:00:21.220
New Jersey film industry has surged since Governor Phil Murphy signed a film and digital media tax credit in 2018.
00:00:28.000
With 547 projects filmed in 2023, generating $592 million, and up from $67 million in 2017,
00:00:38.280
per variety, prompting Tim Sullivan, CEO of New Jersey Economic Development Authority to state,
00:00:43.300
film and TV started in New Jersey way back in the day under Thomas Edison in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
00:00:49.920
We were Hollywood before there was a Hollywood. He's right.
00:00:53.100
We're bringing ourselves back to the top of the pack with major investments because we see a huge economic opportunity here.
00:01:01.180
Major studio developments, including Netflix's $1 billion, half a million square foot production studio at Fort Monmouth,
00:01:08.760
announced in May, Lionsgate's 300,000 square foot facility in Newark, announced in 2022.
00:01:14.560
And 1888 studio's 1.6 million square feet space and Bayonne are rare set to boost real local economies.
00:01:27.240
Guess what? New Jersey saw an opportunity to say, we live in the shadow of New York.
00:01:35.780
You know what? There's a lot of actors and actresses that are up in New York.
00:01:38.480
There's a lot of good people here in New Jersey that would like jobs.
00:01:42.000
Tell you what, what if we gave a tax credit to these people because we're not blue.
00:01:47.920
And by the way, I believe the answer is 4.5 points was New Jersey was not far off from going red in the last election.
00:01:59.080
And so I think New Jersey just spoke up and said, hey, guys, tell you what, here's an economic.
00:02:05.500
We'll give you some economic incentives, like some startup costs.
00:02:09.200
And we're going to call it the film and digital media tax credit.
00:02:17.540
That's like 547 little startup projects that are out there.
00:02:23.520
And guess this is where people that are operators that join government and get it done.
00:02:29.360
And I don't even know this guy, but I read about what he's been saying and doing, and it feels like I agree with him.
00:02:35.500
Tim Sullivan, the CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
00:02:39.980
And when you have those people that have the ear, it's like who's in your ear?
00:02:44.140
Is it a bunch of crazy liberals who want to give away free crap with a mayor coming into New York?
00:02:49.000
Or is it people that are whispering in your ear and saying, hey, maybe we should do this incentive, Mr. Governor.
00:02:56.560
And the Economic Development Office here, we could bring this stuff here.
00:03:00.620
It's going to make jobs for people in New Jersey.
00:03:05.680
This is the same thinking that Trump has on a national level.
00:03:08.520
If we get growth and more people paying the tax that there is today and buying groceries and using cars and doing all those things in our city and getting haircuts and all that kind of stuff, guess what?
00:03:20.420
We can help grow New Jersey without having to tax during the exodus, which is the current California plan or the Chicago plan.
00:03:28.740
And this is a sign of when an operator gets in the ear of a governor, Phil Murphy, and something gets done to help things grow.
00:03:44.080
And it is so ironic that in the annals of history where Thomas Edison was, we're back where we started.
00:03:53.940
But the great thing about competition is the fact that it's going to end up taking place.
00:03:58.340
Meaning if you're able to produce a better product to attract the people coming to you, it doesn't matter where.
00:04:07.180
When did you film that episode, PBD, about Edison?
00:04:17.760
I think it was Thomas Edison was the man, right?
00:04:23.280
And he had essentially a monopoly on what or could not be done.
00:04:28.080
So then you had all these people that were like, well, I can't do what I want to do.
00:04:34.140
I want to do all these things, but good old Thomas Edison is basically telling us everything.
00:04:40.580
He controls everything, you know, so people don't like control.
00:04:44.380
Now, a lot of these people that moved out west that started Hollywood happened to be Jews.
00:04:49.900
I don't know if you know this, but Jews happened to be kind of good at writing, kind of good at banking, kind of good at finance, kind of good at telling jokes.
00:04:58.240
I know, but they were the ones that moved and took the risk and disrupted the original Hollywood and moved out to California.
00:05:06.040
And they were the ones that started and founded, I think it was Warner Brothers, Paramount Studios, Columbia Pictures, MGM.
00:05:13.320
That's why we know while Jews run Hollywood, well, they do because they started Hollywood.
00:05:35.060
The challenge is now, sometimes when you get too much power in an industry like they did in Hollywood,
00:05:41.540
and then the state thinks they're going to own them forever and they're never going to leave,
00:05:45.480
and they start abusing those privileges and the gratitude of having Hollywood, the creative guys being there,
00:05:51.480
other states, there's 49 other states that will be more than happy to accept them.
00:05:54.740
And some states are saying, by the way, you know, some states had the opportunity to do the same thing as well.
00:06:00.140
They're like, we actually don't want Hollywood here.
00:06:10.980
Please do not come here because the track record shows that the moment Hollywood moves to a certain city or state,
00:06:15.820
with the way they vote, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years from now, they destroy that great state.
00:06:21.000
So we'll see what's going to happen with New Jersey.
00:06:25.320
But, you know, I remember a time when Hollywood, California, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
00:06:30.140
who was a California Republican, was the person running the show.
00:06:44.260
There's nothing necessarily to do with Hollywood.
00:06:46.080
Silicon Valley wasn't around when Hollywood basically was getting started.
00:06:50.720
But to blame everything on Hollywood would be a disservice to how far left the Democratic Party has gone.
00:06:55.980
No, I said the politicians start owning and controlling Hollywood.
00:07:00.300
They abuse, but still, other states, typically folks who are in the entertainment business.
00:07:07.380
Like, for example, we just watched a shitty movie.
00:07:09.680
It was called Jurassic Park, whatever the new Jurassic Park movie came out.
00:07:15.280
Literally right before going to watch this Jurassic World movie, I told the guys,
00:07:20.460
I've never seen a Jurassic Park movie I've not liked.
00:07:31.900
And to counter that with a Formula One movie, which what is a Formula One movie with Brad Pitt?
00:07:41.760
It almost was as if Brad Pitt was talking about his life, even though he's not in race.
00:07:46.660
And, you know, if you replace Formula One with Hollywood, it was Brad Pitt's, some of the stuff,
00:07:56.620
But, you know, in this movie, Jurassic World, they're trying to get these three different things that's going to cure cancer, right?
00:08:03.800
And the one guy's like, you could tell he went to Berkeley in the movie.
00:08:07.260
He's like, why don't we not sell this for tens of millions of dollars?
00:08:10.780
Why don't we just open source it and give it to everybody?
00:08:19.920
We're just going to give it to everybody for free.
00:08:22.740
Scarlett Johansson made $15 million, okay, doing the movie.
00:08:32.520
You know, how much do they pay you for what it is?
00:08:34.340
So those ideologies move to the state that they want to live in.
00:08:38.140
And that is why some states that could have easily made the bid to attract Hollywood to their cities and states, they're like, no, this is definitely not a community we want in our state.
00:08:51.640
And by the way, they also have a good argument.
00:08:58.020
I wouldn't even recommend it when it comes out on DVD or when it comes out on Apple TV or whatever you want to call it.
00:09:04.740
I wouldn't waste two hours of my 13 minutes of doing that.
00:09:16.240
You will get more value from it than watching this movie.
00:09:18.460
A freaking two hours and 13 minutes waste of a movie.
00:09:22.140
And you consider all that momentum in Hollywood and everything, it makes you respect people like Gary Sinise and Vince McMahon who have always stood up to it.
00:09:33.560
I thought the dinosaurs that acted in the first movie and the second movie were way better than this one.
00:09:40.280
Believe it or not, as much as I remember being 14 years old watching the first Jurassic Park and I was blown away by it.
00:09:51.980
Once a year, we host an event called The Vault Conference.
00:09:55.960
If you're somebody that either runs a business, you're a married couple, husband and wife, life's been kind of flatlining lately.
00:10:04.720
There's not been too much things that are growing in ways, business, personal, financial.
00:10:10.220
And you kind of want to call it a timeout and get away and spend four days with 3,000 other couples and nearly 12,000 people in the same room together to strategize the future of your life with your kids, being intentional about it.
00:10:22.820
I highly, highly recommend you attend The Vault Conference.
00:10:26.120
It's the only conference you can go to where the attendees are comfortable talking about business, are comfortable talking about money, are comfortable talking about politics, are comfortable talking about family values.
00:10:39.240
You go to some business conference, oh, we can't talk about politics.
00:10:44.040
If that's appealing to you, do whatever you can to go to The Vault Conference.
00:10:53.200
Here's a doctor sitting down as a therapist, sitting down with his patient, and guess who his patient is?
00:11:05.640
Oh, I've got to take the jacket off for this one.
00:11:17.660
I know we talked about that last time I was here.
00:11:19.740
The kids are freaking screaming and yelling all the time.
00:11:27.060
Let me ask you, Coach, when's the last time you and your wife sat down and actually mapped out your next 5, 10, 15 moves, personal life, and your business life?
00:11:35.680
The only thing we've ever mapped out was our Disneyland trip, just, like, which rides to go on.
00:11:40.820
But I'm talking, like, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now.
00:11:46.320
Do you spend a lot of time reading lately or no?
00:11:48.600
I don't know about her, but the last thing I read was the back of a shampoo bottle while I was in the bathroom.
00:11:52.920
I know, but you should see the stuff that's in there.
00:12:02.540
Do you listen to anything he said and say, that's a little bit of me?
00:12:04.840
When is the last time you and your wife took a timeout, went away to a business conference to identify your next 5, 10, 15 moves?
00:12:13.580
If you've never done that, we host a conference once a year called The Ball Conference from September 8th to the 11th.
00:12:20.220
If you just watched this, you laughed a little bit, you giggled, but you said, that's kind of me.
00:12:25.460
I look forward to seeing you and your spouse September 8th through the 11th at the Gaylord Orlando.
00:12:40.900
If there's one that I can tell you since 21 years old, I've gone to 4 to 10 business conferences every year purely to recreate myself.
00:12:53.340
Let's spend 4 days to get in Orlando September 8th through the 11th.
00:12:59.780
If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here.
00:13:02.500
And if you want to watch the entire podcast, click here.