Blockbuster films have a notoriously high budget, with records broken every year. For example, the highest grossing film currently is 2015’s “Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens” which ran a production cost of $533.2 million, according to The Numbers movie data website. That’s not small potatoes, as the production of big budget films are a huge financial risk for production companies. One flop can bankrupt a studio, as seen in the case of the 1995 film “Cutthroat Island,” whose box office failure sent Carlco Pictures into bankruptcy, according to Collider.com.
One of the larger budgetary line items for a big budget film, after securing the A-list protagonist and buying all of the fancy equipment needed to produce the film, is the location. According to FilmLocal.com, location can represent up to 15% of small budget films budgets and can cost as much as $2,000 a day in permit fees for some locations. That means before the cameras and dolly grips even land on site, the production company has already spent tens of thousands of dollars on film permits. Mind you, this cost is specifically for the filming permit. It doesn’t even take any additional permits into account that may be required for encroachment onto public streets, or the operation of pyrotechnics for that cool explosion scene, or the insurance costs for employees and actors.
Sacramento itself is no stranger to the film industry. Films such as 1979’s “The Klansman” and 1999’s “American Beauty” filmed some scenes in Sacramento, but it wasn’t until 2017’s “Lady Bird” that both the local film community and municipal leadership saw it as an opportunity to increase Sacramento’s exposure as a film location. This film, alongside California tax incentives enacted in 2020, stood as the impetus for Sacramento to make an active effort to become a major destination for film production companies…