‘This Is Us’ & ‘Timeless’ Among TV Projects Awarded California Tax Credits
A resurrected Timeless and Season 2 of This Is Us were among the big winners today among TV projects receiving lucrative tax credits from California’s incentive program. Although not all allocated, this latest round saw $51 million available for recurring series and $25 million for relocating series, with the upcoming S.W.A.T. revival and Season 7 of HBO’s Veep also getting some of that taxpayer dough.
Having seen FX’s Legion and Fox’s Lucifer move from Vancouver and Showtime’s The Affair jump from New York in the previous round of TV tax incentive awards in March, the California Film Commission continued its emphasis on snagging relocating series with Thursday’s announcement.
More from Deadline
Timeless, canceled for a brief spell in May before being brought back to life three days later by NBC, will shift from Vancouver to California for its upcoming second season. To that end, the time-travel series starring Abigail Spencer, Malcolm Barrett and Matt Lanter cashed in big time today with an allocation of nearly $9.6 million in credits. It marks the 12th relocating series the expanded program has lured to the Golden State.
Here is the complete list of TV projects that have been picked up and chosen so far for the latest round of incentives, with the amount they are receiving:
Limited to recurring and newly relocating series, the latest round of applications for the $76 million available ran May 22-29. Including the relocating Timeless, a total of 28 recurring series in various stages of production are currently in the program and eligible for tax incentives during this period, says the CFC. No one else gets anything until a formal pickup is given.
“Thanks to the tax credit program, we are able to capitalize on California’s vast talent pool of experienced crew and below-the-line support and infrastructure,” said Sony Pictures TV’s EVP Production Ed Lammi, today of the tax credits for Timeless, a Sony TV show created by Shawn Ryan and Eric Kripke . “We know these assets will be a huge benefit for producing the second season of Timeless.”
It is estimated that bringing Timeless, which is going to be at Comic-Con next month, coming to California will see 250 cast, 220 crew and 3,000 extras employed and about $40 million in qualified expenditures laid out. By “qualified expenditures,” the CFC means paid checks to below-the-line workers and in-state vendors, aka some of Hollywood’s finest and hardest-working.
For big-screen studio and indie hopefuls, the latest round for applications began June 19 and ended two days ago. Once assessed, and based on factors like below-the-line employment and local spending estimates, initial applicants will be notified in the next couple of weeks, with an official announcement expected around July 24. The next TV round begins November 6 and goes until November 13, with news of who got what due sometime around the second week of December.
The last round of film awards was revealed in February, with the latest version of A Star Is Born and a Clint Eastwood-directed film from Warner Bros among the applicants receiving a portion of the $100 million allocated.
Today’s TV allocations come two days after Gov. Jerry Brown inked California’s latest state budget. Thursday’s successful applicants are the first in what is now the third year of the state’s expanded $330 million annual program.
After intense political wrangling in Sacramento and no small amount of lobbying by the studios, networks and the City of Los Angles to make the then-stumbling lottery-based $100 million-a-year incentive more competitive with the likes of New York and Georgia, Brown signed the greatly expanded, merit-based program into law in September 2014.
The current program will be up for a renewal in 2019 to go into effect in 2020.
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
