Senate Bill 22 is gaining bipartisan support from state lawmakers in Austin even gaining support from Texas actors such as Matthew McConaughey.
If passed, it would boost financial incentives for TV and movie productions to be made in the Lone Star State.
25 News’ Bobby Poitevint spoke to a local Waco film production company to hear more about what all this could mean for growing our economy and Central Texas’ footprint in film.
Damon Crump directed the 2008 horror/thriller movie Risen which was filmed across the Greater Waco area with some climatic scenes shot at the Bellmead Civic Center.
The film had 300-400 extras used as zombies for at least an exterior scene shot outside of the Bellmeade Civic Center.
Damon shares a unique story from filming a scene of ‘zombies’ banging on exterior windows.
He said, “we had a lot of them up here banging on the windows and some of them — even though we told them not to bang hard — one of these windows here cracked pretty much all the way up and down — fortunately we didn’t have to pay for it because they were about to do the remodel (of the civic center). So the city was very cool to work with, very supportive of what we did.”
After taking him down memory lane, Bobby asked Damon about his thoughts on Senate Bill 22.
“If this bill is passed, I think the biggest benefit’s gonna be a lot more film production in Texas,” he said.
Before and during our interview, he said he’s had and heard of many conversations about production companies wanting to film in Texas or Waco but film incentives in other states were better.
Senate Bill 22 would change that but not just for big budget productions but for smaller ones too, like Damon’s production company Jackalope Entertainment.
One of Senate Bill 22’s facets would take the current 10% rebate for productions with budgets ranging from $1M to $3.5M and up it to 25% with productions that have at-least a $1.5M budget, reports highlight.
Damon believes this would not only encourage production companies to increase their budgets so they could qualify for those rebates but also bring thousands of people to Texas or Waco to be part of a single TV or film production—an economic boom made for the big screens and small ones, too.
He said it would be a “game-changer” for Texas’s film industry and said “to me it’s kinda a no-brainer” he said and added, “I think for me and many other producers, yeah it’s gonna be kind of eye-opening.”
Now, Senate Bill 22 has received pushback, with reports showing some lawmakers questioning whether tax dollars should be spent on productions made in Texas that are not “family-friendly.”
We will continue monitoring the bill as it works through the legislature.
