New Jersey has become Hollywood East. Here's how it happened
Texas has oil. Pennsylvania has coal.
New Jersey has film.
Movies are our natural resource. It's what we're rich in.
Between the scenic locales, the concentration of tech people and the proximity to two of America's great cities, the Garden State was obviously intended by nature to be a film capital.
Which is what it is fast becoming. The new Hollywood, some would say.
"New Jersey is going to be in this game for the long haul," said Nick Day, president of the Screen Alliance of New Jersey.
"The whole culture of New Jersey is going to be improved by this," he said.
A growth industry
"Deliver Me From Nowhere" being filmed on location at the former IZOD center, East Rutherford
In 2023, film and TV production brought $592 million into the state — and that figure grew by a third the following year: $833 million in 2024. Jon M. Crowley, executive director of the New Jersey Motion Picture & Television Commission, is expecting a similar jump for 2025, though the final figures aren't in yet.
"I just see the numbers going up and up and up," Crowley said.
Four enormous studios, now under construction, are slated to be in operation by 2027 or 2028.
The $125 million Lionsgate studio complex in Newark's South Ward is expected to generate some 600 permanent jobs. The $1.2 billion 1888 Studios project in the Bergen Point section of Bayonne, with Paramount as its anchor tenant, will provide permanent employment to over 2,000. The $900 million Netflix Studios in Monmouth County, on the site of the old Fort Monmouth, will bring with it over 1,400 hires.
And in February, Paterson announced the coming of Filmology Labs, a $250 million "studio campus" to open in a former silk mill on State Street. It is expected to be open by 2028 and employ hundreds.
All this means big numbers: in jobs, in tax revenue, in windfall for the hotels, restaurants and businesses that stand to profit.
"A high tide rises all boats," Crowley said.
Incentivizing the movies
The leader of the commission established by former Gov. Brendan Byrne, in 1976, to encourage film production in the state is sounding gleeful — and no surprise.
In the last eight years, especially, with the introduction of former Gov. Phil Murphy's 30% to 40% tax rebate for qualified film projects in 2018, film and TV production in the state has taken on the aspects of a boom — New Jersey's equivalent of the Oklahoma land rush or California gold fever.
"West Side Story," filmed on location in Paterson
"Happy Gilmore 2" (West Orange, Montclair, Freehold), "A Complete Unknown" (Hoboken, Jersey City, Cape May, Paterson, Newark and more) "Marty Supreme" (East Rutherford, Elizabeth, Hopewell), "Song Sung Blue" (Montclair, Garwood, Matawan, Paterson, Wayne, Old Tappan, Elizabeth), "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" (Asbury Park, Freehold, East Rutherford, Newark, Bayonne, Rahway), and "Joker: Folie à Deux" (Belleville, Jersey City, Kearny) are just a few of the movies that have been shot on location here over the past few years.
"The Sopranos," "Severance," "FBI: Most Wanted," "Oz," "Cake Boss" and "The Walking Dead: Dead City," not to mention "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," have made our malls and motorways familiar to TV viewers worldwide.
Steven Spielberg has been in New Jersey no fewer than three times. His upcoming movie "Disclosure Day" with Emily Blunt was filmed in Tuckahoe, Woodbine, Jersey City and Morristown. His 2005 "War of the Worlds" was shot in Bayonne, Newark and Howell. Much of his 2021 "West Side Story" was filmed in Paterson. Mayor André Sayegh will never forget it.
"We had to actually stop working," he recalled, "because they were filming that scene 'I Want to Be in America.' You could hear it in every office on the second floor of City Hall. It was like an earworm."
Not only did Spielberg bring business to Paterson, his business brought business.
"I gave him the key to the city," Sayegh said. "And I recall him telling me, 'I'm gonna go back and tell my friends about Paterson.' And then a few months later, Aaron Sorkin comes in and he films 'The Trial of the Chicago 7.' Just because I had the conversation with Spielberg and he told people, 'Here's a place where they embrace moviemakers.' And we do."
More studios in the pipeline
Along with the four big complexes now under construction, big studios have been proposed for West Orange, Atlantic City and Cherry Hill, though such talk is still just speculation. (Atlantic City is on hold for the moment: AXC Studios filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 13).
In the meantime, 70 soundstages are already in use in New Jersey, in retrofitted warehouses, business parks and similar spaces. Bell Works, the former Bell Labs complex in Holmdel, has become familiar to millions of TV viewers nationwide through its use in "Severance," "Law & Order: Organized Crime" and "The Crowded Room."
Bell Works
"Bell Works in Holmdel has now become an architectural icon to people all over the world, thanks to 'Severance,'" Crowley said.
One minor dividend of all this, for New Jerseyans, is a thrill once enjoyed only by the denizens of Los Angeles. They're seeing stars.
They're able to spot Kate Hudson walk into a local deli, Hugh Jackman seated at their favorite restaurant, Ben Affleck walking down their town sidewalk. Just another typical day in the new New Jersey.
"When Adam Sandler was making 'Happy Gilmore 2," he was photographed all the time stopping into a deli, getting a sandwich," Crowley said.
"Fight For '84." Jamie Foxx as Master Sergeant Roosevelt Sanders and Director Andrès Baiz on the set of 'Fight for '84," filmed in Passaic, Wayne and East Rutherford
When "West Side Story" was shooting in Paterson in 2019, Sayegh recalled, he was interrupted in a meeting by someone saying, "You gotta come downstairs. Bruce Springsteen is here." The mayor thought he was joking. "So I came downstairs and there was The Boss. I couldn't believe it. He was there to visit his friend Steven Spielberg on the set."
A long time coming
How did all this happen so suddenly?
In fact, it's not sudden at all. It's the oldest story in movies.
Before there was a Hollywood, in the early 1900s, America's film industry was centered in New Jersey. Fort Lee, in particular.
More than 15 studios had their first homes on the Hudson, including Universal and Fox, later 20th Century Fox. It was the lure of year-round sunshine and a desire to flee zealous patent lawyers that led filmmakers to decamp, in the late 'teens, to Los Angeles.
That's why Crowley gets slightly miffed when people refer to New Jersey, as they often do these days, as "Hollywood East."
"I've always said that Hollywood is New Jersey West," he said. "The business started here. New Jersey was the birthplace of filmmaking, and now its future again. I love that. I love that it's a full-circle sort of thing."
It doesn't hurt, from New Jersey's perspective, that Hollywood itself is now hurting.
The one-two punch of COVID and the 2023 Hollywood strikes by SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America led to a 20% downturn in Hollywood production by 2025 — a 30-year low. For a number of reasons, not least the cost of permits, film production on the West Coast has come to seem prohibitively expensive — and New Jersey is not the only state that has tried to woo producers with promises of big savings.
Some other states offer studios comparable tax rebates: New York (30% to 40%), Georgia (20% to 30%), Louisiana (40%) and New Mexico (25% to 40%).
The many attractions of New Jersey
But New Jersey, Crowley believes, has advantages that no other state can match.
One is scenery.
Sure, some might smirk — girders and asphalt. Out-of-staters who have seen only the 20 miles of turnpike that stretch between Weehawken and Rahway are apt to be condescending about us.
"The Enemy Within" TV series being filmed in Cresskill, 2018
In fact, as residents know, New Jersey also contains rolling farmland, waterfalls, quaint old towns, seashore, lakes, rivers, mountains, forests, and cities big and small.
Many an urban mayor, like Sayegh, has looked upward and discovered that a gritty city has a gloriously photogenic architectural past. The 19th-century rococo of Paterson can — shot from the right angles — look like anything from the west side of Manhattan to Chicago to Prague. "The city has good bones," Sayegh said.
New Jersey even has a desert, or what could pass for one: Eagleswood in Ocean County. It was used in the 2004 remake of "The Manchurian Candidate," with Denzel Washington. "It has 30 acres of sand dunes," said Day, of the Screen Alliance of New Jersey.
This "desert" in Eagleswood, Ocean County was used in the 2004 remake of "The Manchurian Candidate." It's actually the property of Silvi Materials, a building supply company
Not only is there variety, there is proximity.
Infinite riches in a little room! The Garden State is only 166 miles long by 65 miles wide. We boast the most wildly varied settings, most within a 40-minute drive of one another.
"You can go from location to location quickly, because we're in a geographically compact area," Crowley said. "In filmmaking, time is money."
Help is on the way
Another plus is New Jersey's support structure.
The state has an outsized pool of cinematographers, lighting technicians, set designers, sound engineers, production designers, editors, grips, grunts and publicists to draw on — not to mention caterers, limo rentals, hotels, transportation services, lumbermills, equipment rental outfits, and so on.
"It's really world-class type of support," said Day, whose own company, Edge Auto, is one of many ancillary businesses that have sprung up during the state's movie boom.
Founded in Brooklyn in 2006, the vehicle rental business later expanded to Queens. But four years ago, with New Jersey's film industry exploding, it opened a branch in Newark. Mainly, it caters to film people.
"We have 700 vehicles of all classes," Day said. "The stars need luxury SUVs, the cast and crew need transit vans, the production needs box trucks for lights and a camera truck for cameras, maybe they need a refrigerator truck for catering. They can get that all from us with one phone call. They can get it at 3 in the morning for a dawn shoot."
Nick Day, of Edge Auto, with some of his fleet.
His is one of many businesses that will be featured at the second annual NJ Film Expo at the Meadowlands Arena on April 30, hosted by the Screen Alliance of New Jersey. This is the state's big yearly showcase, where industry reps can go to take the measure of what is going on, now, west of the Hudson.
Did you know that the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, and the Teamsters have roughly 4,000 members living in the state? New Jersey's film boosters would be happy to tell you.
And their services, Crowley said, are increasingly in demand. In 2023, there were 15,000 crew hires, he said. In 2024, there were 30,000. And he's expecting to see more growth when the 2025 numbers are tallied.
What this means, for producers, is that New Jersey can take on a dozen major productions at a time without breaking a sweat. There's always enough help to go around.
"We're about to have almost 30 productions going in-state next month," Crowley said. "That's not a problem for us. We've got enough experienced crew that we're going to be able to stock those productions and not see any decline in professionalism or experience."
What's not to like
Downsides? There are some, of course. Real, or perceived.
Increased traffic. Lack of parking. General inconvenience, in the view of some residents of some towns.
And, in a few quarters, a feeling that New Jersey tax dollars shouldn't go to support a business — any business. "'Why do they get the benefit of a tax credit?' — that's something that has been articulated," Day said.
Also there are some who have noted, as the state's film industry has ramped up, a disparity between north and south.
Right now, 70% of film production in New Jersey is centered in the northern part of the state.
That has everything to do with proximity to New York. More specifically, with an old union formulation known as TMZ — the "thirty mile zone" — established in Hollywood and later brought to the East Coast.
Beyond a 30-mile radius of Columbus Circle, studios incur additional costs in overtime, along with hotel fees for New York union workers and other expenses. "So the cost of production goes up when you go outside of the TMZ," Crowley said. "It's a protection that's built in for workers."
The result is that productions tend to stay in the charmed circle — no farther south than, say, Atlantic Highlands. Meanwhile, Central and South Jersey, some would argue, get shortchanged when it comes to the windfall spending that a movie shoot can bring.
Looking for balance
The state has tried to counter this, offering additional tax rebates to companies that are willing to go farther afield.
Cape May doubles as Newport R.I. in "No Direction Home." Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash
"We try to incentivize you to get outside the zone," Crowley said. "You get a 30% [rebate] if you're inside the TMZ, 35% if you're outside the TMZ. Because you don't want to build fatigue in to your communities that are up north. You don't want them to get all the work, and there's no work coming to Central and South Jersey."
The South Jersey towns — many of them resorts that live off summer dollars — have a special stake in luring film crews to their bracken and beaches during the offseason.
Crowley remembers showing a state senator around last year, when Spielberg was in Cape May County filming "Disclosure Day."
"I said: Look out there," he recalled. "There's 350 crew members. They're spending money at restaurants. They're buying gas and groceries. And because they're outside the TMZ, they're all staying at hotels. There were eight hotels to accommodate 350, charging an average of $285 a night. So do the math. And he said, 'Oh, my God, this is in the offseason.'
"And the senator said, 'How soon can we get another production down here?'"
Ultimately, Day believes, New Jersey's film revolution will be good for the whole state.
Not least because as more and more films and TV shows are made here, more and more people worldwide will see that the state isn't just swamps, mobsters and mosquitoes. New Jersey, to the tune of $900 million or more annually, will be in the business of promoting itself.
"It's going to mean a lot for tourism," Day said. "New Jersey is going to be seen around the world now."
