14-04-2025
Second film bill billed as ‘not just a film bill'
Nevada Studios rendering (Photo courtesy of UNLV)
Lawmakers on Thursday considered the second of two bills seeking to massively expand Nevada's film tax credit program, though the bill sponsor attempted to frame her proposal as 'not just a film bill.'
'Yes, we will build studios,' Democratic state Sen. Roberta Lange told lawmakers on the Senate Revenue and Economic Development Committee, which held a hearing for the bill on Thursday before referring it to the Senate Finance Committee. 'We will be making movies. We will be making shows. But that's just the beginning.'
Lange's Senate Bill 220 seeks $1.6 billion in public subsidies over 18 years to support the construction and operation of a 34-acre film and production campus planned for a southwest Las Vegas lot owned by the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Nevada's film tax credit program would jump from $10 million annually to $98 million in three years, then remain at $98 million annually for 15 years.
For that investment, the project is promising $9.8 billion in total production spending and the development of workforce pipelines into new industries. The campus would also include a dedicated media and technology lab for use by UNLV, Nevada State University, and College of Southern Nevada, as well as a second lab focused on creative technologies used both for entertainment and non-entertainment industries like defense and healthcare.
Lange emphasized the project will be built on public land and is a public-private partnership.
'That structure ensures that this development doesn't just benefit a single company or a single decade,' she added. 'It becomes a long-term public asset.'
Birtcher Development is developing the project and would own the buildings on the property. Birtcher would lease the land for 100 years. MBS Group, a film and television studio operator associated with more than 1,000 productions per year in studios across the globe, has signed on as the lead occupant of the studio space.
Consulting firm Camoin Associates estimates nearly 3,000 jobs would be created during construction and around 8,800 jobs would be created permanently. They estimate the total economic output at $33.3 billion over the 18-year period.
About $607 million of that would be directly through new state revenue — commerce, modified business and sales taxes.
Put another way: Camoin estimates that for every $1 of tax credits Nevada would receive $0.38 back in taxes and see $3.31 generated through wages.
SB220 would create a nonprofit called the Creative Technology Initiative focused on boosting Southern Nevada as a leader in video game design and publishing, aerospace and defense, and medical device and healthcare manufacturing. It would establish the UNLV Center for Creative Technologies.
The proposal is inspired by the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, one of 14 research centers sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, and the University of Utah's Division of Games, which has become a leader in the video game industry.
Lange and her partners believe the initiative could tap into DOD and Veterans Affairs contracts and bring in additional billions in new economic investment over the next two decades.
During the hearing for SB220, Lange did not mention the competing film tax credit proposal, Assembly Bill 238. That bill, sponsored by Democratic Assemblymembers Sandra Jauregui and Danielle Monroe Moreno, would establish a film and production studio in Summerlin. Sony Pictures, Warner Bros Discovery, and Howard Hughes Holdings are attached to the project.
Those partners previously worked with Lange on a film tax credit bill introduced in 2023. That bill, which asked for a staggering $4.9 billion in tax breaks over 25 years, languished and never made it out of its first committee, meaning this year's duo of bills have already gone further.
Lange has previously said the partners 'went radio silent' on her during the interim period between sessions and reemerged with a new bill sponsored by other lawmakers. She's also said she believes the film tax credit bills should be combined.
Like Lange's bill, the assembly bill was advanced out of the chamber's revenue committee without recommendation after a lengthy hearing and referred to the chamber's finance committee.
Either proposal would amount to the largest public subsidy ever approved by the state. Both are being considered at a time when lawmakers are openly worried about revenue shortfalls caused by a downturn in the economy, federal cuts to widely used programs like Medicaid, or both.
Lange acknowledged those concerns in her presentation.
'We are facing real economic headwinds,' she said. 'This is not an optimistic time. Instabilities in markets and the economy will affect Nevada more than most. We are all asking 'where do we go from here?''
SB220, she added, is 'a beacon of hope and a way forward that is visionary and practical.'
Both film tax credit bills are exempt from standard legislative deadlines. The legislative session runs through June 2.
