Hooray for...Jerseywood?
An irresistible package of incentives is turning Tony Soprano’s home state into the country’s hottest new filmmaking hub. Max Cea crosses the Hudson to behold a rising soundstage empire.
In 2006, when Cameron Zonfrilli and John Welsh shifted their film production business, Parlay, to a full-fledged multistage Jersey City studio, their clients mainly consisted of small reality-based cable shows, multicams, and commercial work. At the time, there wasn’t a lot of film production in New Jersey. “A lot of little independent commercials and agency work,” Zonfrilli says. Twenty years later, the film landscape in the Garden State is experiencing a boom. Big state-of-the-art studios are being built, renovated, and expanded all over the state. And top Hollywood players like Lionsgate, Netflix, and Paramount are coming to town, teaming with developers to build enormous new facilities.
The rapid production resurgence occurring in U.S. cinema’s birthplace was set in motion in 2018. That year, Governor Phil Murphy and the state legislature reinstated New Jersey’s tax incentives to film and television producers, which had been suspended several years earlier by the Chris Christie administration. At 30 percent of eligible expenses and up to 35 percent in select remote areas of the state, the credits are some of the best in the country.
“The moment the film incentive credit became real, it started to happen,” Zonfrilli says. After the state employed an extensive marketing push, Zonfrilli watched as producers gradually began assessing New Jersey’s capacity to support a production of scale. “As a few tested the water and had successful productions and were able to receive their incentive, word got out. And now, it’s a snowball effect.”
Since 2018, the incentives have gotten even more enticing. In 2024, the annual cap was raised from $75 million to $430 million, and productions were offered an additional incentive of two or four percent for meeting diversity criteria. What’s more, if companies commit to occupy a more than 250,000 square-foot New Jersey production facility for 10 or more years, they are eligible for a 40 percent base tax credit for qualified production expenses.
The 40 percent credit for studio partners has helped attract an array of Hollywood powers. In Newark, Great Point Studios is spending $125 million constructing Lionsgate Newark Studios, a 350,000 square-foot purpose-built space that Lionsgate will occupy as the key tenant. Meanwhile, in Fort Monmouth, Netflix is in the process of constructing a studio campus that will cover more than one million square feet and feature 12 soundstages, backlot areas, an office building, and other production support facilities. And Paramount recently signed on to be the anchor tenant of 1888 Studios, a 1.6 million square-foot complex currently being developed in Bayonne. When these projects are complete, the state will go from having three purpose-built stages to more than 30.
As New Jersey’s tax incentives have improved, so has the state’s production infrastructure. In just the past couple years, the state has added camera rental houses, lumber mills that specialize in set construction, and payroll services. There are lots of experienced above- and below-the-line talent on both sides of the Hudson, and New Jersey’s large variety of industrial businesses makes sourcing materials easy and affordable. “There are a lot of suppliers here,” says Sheryl Victor Levy, chief marketing officer at Eastern Effects, which has a soundstage in Kearny, New Jersey. “Whether it’s lumber or electrical or pipe, they’re all around here. If we need hand-sewn muslin, it’s nearby. If we need pipe and electrical, it’s very easy to access. We also like that there’s a local community of delis and restaurants and businesses.”
Eastern Effects, which has operated in Brooklyn since 1999, expanded to a 100,000 square-foot space in Kearny in 2021. “It was the New Jersey market and the tax incentive, but it was also that the cost of rents and operating in Brooklyn were getting excessive,” says founder and president Scott Levy.
Levy was one of several studio operators I spoke with who credited the state’s film commission with going above and beyond to attract and retain production. “That team at the film commission, headed by Jon Crowley, has done things that most other film commissions haven’t thought of doing,” says Levy. The commission has streamlined the permitting process; it does scouting and script breakdowns; and at the end of a shoot, it has a program to help repurpose materials that would otherwise be thrown out. When Eastern Effects had an emergency heat issue and a production needed speedy assistance, Levy says that the film commission acted swiftly to help them navigate hurdles. “Something that normally would take two months was done in a week.”
Crowley, the executive director of the state film commission, has also embarked on an extensive listening tour with different studios and production companies, where he’s made a point of asking what issues productions are encountering. “That time spent listening to what the industry’s needs are is the best marketing you could do,” says Levy. “You’re not only finding out what the pain points are for your customer, which is these studios and film and TV companies, but you’re also solving that problem and saying, ‘We solved your problem. Come shoot here.’”
“It’s not enough to get a production in here just one time,” says Crowley. “We want you to come back again and again. The name of the game is getting that spend while you’re here in the state.”
And at a time when in-state spending by productions fell in states like Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, and California, it rose in New Jersey. From 2023 to 2024, total estimated in-state film production spending increased from $592 million to $833 million. And the growth continued last year. In the fourth quarter of 2025, New Jersey saw the biggest year-over-year growth in the country.
When I visited Parlay one day in late February, the studio was hosting On Patrol: Live, Project Runway, and The Kitchen. The Kitchen has been shooting at Parlay since 2021 and previously had been shooting elsewhere in the state. Producer Brett Stolnick told me that production in the state “definitely feels like it’s getting a lot busier.”
With competition increasing across New Jersey, studios have been racing to up their offerings. Stellar Studios, in Fairfield, is remodeling its studio spaces to service clients looking for modern amenities like VR walls. Eastern Effects is shifting to green battery power for its generators. And Parlay recently expanded its footprint. “Now, as larger productions are coming in—TV shows and movies of scale—it’s a different criteria in terms of what’s required for them to be able to produce efficiently,” says Parlay’s Zonfrilli. “As other participants know, it’s a lot of space requirements. Space is a big thing. You have to have the space.”
At the moment, the various studios are embracing the competition. “In order for the market to fully mature, there need to be other offerings and competitors,” says Derek Elkins, the vice president of studio strategy and solution for Cinelease, which has a 67,600 square-foot studio in Jersey City. “It’s a big business, small community. We all know each other and are friends. We think this is a great thing for Jersey. So, we don’t view it as a threat. We’re welcoming seeing further development.”
And the added benefit of more production is that it has the potential to act as protection against a future administration rolling back the incentive program. “The more that’s established, the harder it will be to convince the general public and constituents to reverse something that’s working,” says Zonfrilli. “You obviously have a huge opportunity for job creation, a huge opportunity for employees wanting to move to New Jersey and potentially buy homes, live here long-term, be part of a community, and earn money within the state.”
The Garden State probably won’t replace Tinseltown as the industry’s epicenter anytime soon. But when Crowley took his job leading the film commission, he promised his bosses that the state could edge out Georgia as the third biggest production hub in the country. And last year, they just narrowly missed that goal. “I think we can do it this year,” he says.
And beyond that? Cinelease’s Elkins says, “The message is clear to Hollywood that New Jersey is in it to win it for the long haul.”
Here are a few of the state’s top studio spaces:
Parlay
Location: Jersey City
Size: 100,000 square feet
Number of studios/stages: Three studios and three stages
Key features: Proximity to Manhattan, soundproofing, makeup and wardrobe rooms, kitchens, equipment rentals.
Cinelease
Location: Jersey City
Size: 67,600 square feet
Number of studios/stages: Three sound stages
Features: Proximity to Manhattan, the only purpose-built media campus in New Jersey, 33,500 square feet of mill/flex/support.
Eastern Effects
Location: Kearny
Size: 60,000 square feet
Number of studios/stages: Two soundstages
Features: Drive-in access, ample office space, soundproof, large soundstages, equipment rentals, LED wall.
Stellar
Location: Fairfield
Size: 12,000 square feet
Number of studios/stages: Four studios
Features: Drive-in LED volume for virtual production, green screen drive-in studio, broadcast studio with a modular LED wall.
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Excellent article, Max.
East Coast rules, baby