It’s been no secret that Austin has been a hub for creatives in the entertainment industry. Directors like Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids), actors like Matthew McConaughey (Dazed and Confused), and showrunners like Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) are just a handful of people who’ve come to call the Capital City home. Yet heads were turned in May with the news that another Lone Star creative was bringing his media empire to Central Texas.
Season 2 of 1923, the latest chapter of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone saga, is filming in Austin, one of several locales for the story of the Dutton family. Ever since the announcement, fans have been lining up for casting calls and looking for any glimpse of the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren-led cast.
“I’m terribly, terribly impressed by the professionalism of Taylor Sheridan’s organization, by the people he’s got, top to bottom,” said Stephen Bieneman, principal of ATX Studios, where 1923 is filming. “Whether it’s the producer, director of photography, head of construction, lights, camera, crew, all that, very, very, very well done, very professional. And I’ve had others where, let’s just say it’s a little more catch-as-catch-can.”
A decade ago, almost nobody knew Taylor Sheridan’s name. Now, after penning Sicario and the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water, the Cranfils Gap, Texas native has become the darling of Paramount, launching seven shows with an eighth, Landman, in post-production. The success of Yellowstone has created a loyal following among Sheridan’s fans and was a prime reason Austin Film Society was keen on bringing Sheridan’s team to town for future projects.
The pitch to Sheridan was that Austin could provide filmmaking crews of a higher quality who were local to the area compared to North Texas, where he had shot his previous Texas shows (1883, Lawmen: Bass Reeves). Ultimately, Sheridan took the pitch and reached out to Austin Studios, where the CW’s Walker was filmed.
“Unfortunately, when they came to us, we were not available,” Austin Studios Director Martin Jones said to MySA. “We’d been very fortunate to be 100% occupied at the time, and then our largest show got canceled a few weeks later, and I called them immediately, and they had signed a deal with our other friends at ATX Film Studios. So we didn’t get them at Austin Studios, but we’re very happy that they’re in Austin.”
The new CW series “Walker,” starring San Antonio native Jared Padalecki, also is casting actors in Texas.
Rebecca Brenneman /The CW
Jones called the move a “validation and affirmation” for past artists like director Richard Linklater (Boyhood) and producer Elizabeth Avellan — who co-founded Troublemaker Studios alongside ex-husband and San Antonio native Robert Rodriguez in 1991 — who “saw early in their careers that Austin was a place to make great media.” Ultimately, the City of Austin stands to benefit from one of TV’s hottest shows to the tune of $51 million.
1923 will reportedly spend $15 million on local wages, $23 million for “local non-wage expenditures,” use 26,000 “room night stays,” and hire 200 combined cast and crew members local to Austin, creating an economic impact of $51,861,641 out of the shows’ $150 million budget, according to documents approved by the Austin EDC. From catering contracts to wardrobe departments, hair and makeup, to even security, there’s been no shortage of opportunities for local Austin businesses to tap into the job creations from 1923.
“Creative industry has long been a pillar of Austin’s economy, and it’s a priority for our local economic development,” Austin EDC Director Jeremy Martin said to MySA. “And you look back at the city’s partnership with Friday Night Lights as an example, it just further solidifies the opportunities for our talent that’s here, and it continues to signal to the rest of the country that Austin’s a great place for our film, television, creative industries.”
So, is this a sign of a changing industry in Central Texas? Bastrop’s upcoming Line 204 Studios are expected to bring in $1 billion over 10 years just outside of Austin. Meanwhile Hill Country Studios in San Marcos at 200+ acres is set to become the largest film studio in Texas when it opens in 2025. In a perfect world business would boom with the arrival of these groups. Is 1923 the production that will bring a bevy of future shows to the area?
Right now the future looks murky.
Obviously these new studios want those productions, as do the cities, to keep business running and jobs rolling in. Yet for all the films and shows Central Texas has seen over the years — Friday Night Lights, Spy Kids, and Miss Congeniality, to name a few — there has also been a lot of dead space. Yes, Austin has welcomed shows like Walker, Fear the Walking Dead, and HBO’s Love & Death recently, but cities like Atlanta and Vancouver — even Bucharest, Romania — have dominated Hollywood’s alternate shooting spaces for decades and it really breaks down to one thing: incentives.
Texas is benefiting from the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, a historic package that provides film and TV productions 20% production incentives in a $200 million package, the highest ever approved by the Texas Legislature. It was a major part in landing 1923, according to Austin EDC, and was praised by multiple Texas-born Hollywood stars when it was passed in 2023. Yet while it was a major deal, it pales to what’s available in rival states.
For comparison, Georgia offers a 30% film incentive that has led to numerous productions like Black Panther, Stranger Things, and The Walking Dead creating an economic boom. Georgia’s incentives are built into the state law, whereas the TXMIIIP expires in 2025, leaving the next Texas Legislature to make a new deal. That isn’t the most appealing environment for prospective films and TV shows.
Stephen Bieneman of ATX Studios knows the importance of incentives first hand after losing AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. The show had come to Austin in 2018 and had shot four 16-episode seasons in Texas, but when the incentives could not be guaranteed for the final season in 2023, the show left for Savannah, Georgia.
“If you’re in Hollywood and someone comes to you with a project, or there’s a TV, streaming, film, whatever, the first thing that you’re gonna ask is, what’s the budget?” Bieneman said to MySA. “Let’s just say they say $100 million. And then you say, ‘Okay, well, what are the incentives? Where are you planning to do it?’ And if they say 20, they’re gonna say, ‘Well, why aren’t you doing in Georgia? Why aren’t you doing it in Vancouver? Why aren’t you sticking close to Hollywood, where most everyone in front of the camera and many people behind the camera can drive to work?’”
It’s a stark reminder that Hollywood is a business. Even if a story might be set in Texas, the parameters around the production need to be airtight for shooting to actually take place in the Lone Star State. Oscar winning films like No Country for Old Men have used New Mexico as popular alternatives to Texas; San Antonio’s own Shea Serrano-penned Primo, based on his adventures growing up in the Alamo City was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico; even Richard Linklater’s Hit Man was notoriously filmed in New Orleans despite being based on a Houston story, written for Texas Monthly by tenured true crime writer Skip Hollandsworth. It all comes back to incentives.
Unless your pockets are as deep as James Cameron’s love for all things below the ocean and can film Alita: Battle Angel without worrying about cost, incentives are going to always play a factor.
The Texas Media Production Alliance (TXMPA), the leading group lobbying for film and TV incentives in the Texas Legislature, is aware of the uphill battle to compete against Georgia and Vancouver in the industry and is including that in its discussions in preparation for the 2025 legislative session.
“Anything we can do to create a vehicle where it is something that’s more than every two years to have to go back and revisit what the incentive looks like would be significant,” TXMPA Executive Director Fred Poston said to MySA. “So there’s a variety of conversations that have been going on or continuing to happen to try to see how that would be possible.”
“What I will tell you,” Poston added, “is that even with this big jump in incentives, the Texas Film Commission reports that they’re going to be pretty much on target with spending all that money. So if you look at incentive dollars as tickets to a concert, our concerts are sold out.”
The potential has always been there for Central Texas to be an entertainment hub, and the current shows and studios in development showcase that same potential. Now it all comes down to whether the state leaders will reinvest in the Lone Star State with a thoughtful, longterm entertainment plan that can make telling Texas stories in Texas a priority.
Read full article in: MYSA
