The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Ohio officials are giving out more than $36 million in tax credits for film, tv and theatrical productions in the state. The awards come on the heels of Sundance announcing Cincinnati is among six finalists to host the independent film festival when its current contract with Park City, UT runs out.
How does the tax credit work and who got it?
Ohio’s Motion Picture Tax Credit has been around since 2009, and it has $50 million a year available in tax credits. Productions get to defray costs through a 30% credit on cast and crew wages or in-state spending. Ohio gets to reap the short-term economic benefit of a pop-up business while hopefully developing a network of expertise to foster the long-term growth of film in the state.
“Ohio is an ideal location for entertainment production; we offer big city backdrops, small town appeal, and everything in between,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in a press release. “We’re happy to welcome these productions — and the economic impact they’ll bring — to Ohio.”
The program hands out awards in two tranches of $25 million, but it’s structured to rollover unused funding to the following period. State officials also set aside a tenth of the credits for theatrical productions.
Ohio may not be the first place that springs to mind for filmmaking, but there have been several successful movies that have shot here. The Shawshank Redemption, Rain Man, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles all did work in Ohio, not to mention a handful of Marvel movies, one entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise and cult classic A Christmas Story.
Superman, which is aiming to hit theaters in Summer of 2025, just wrapped filming in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
RELATED: Despite downtown roadblocks and traffic headaches, many say Superman is worth it
The production got just over $11 million in Ohio tax credits.
The largest award in the latest round goes to The Epiphany, a 2025 thriller starring Sylvester Stallone as a Philadelphia detective. According to an IMDB logline, he’s “forced to deal with his unsettled past with the Catholic Church when he investigates a serial killer who is targeting its members who are linked to a local scandal.” The production got almost $11 million in credits.
Other large awards go to a project listed as Syndicate ($4.6 million) and another called Breaking up with Mom and Dad ($6.1 million). All Elite Wrestling will get more than $1 million for its 2024-2025 production season, and a mini-series called Columbus Quartet will receive $3.3 million. The jukebox musical Tina about Tina Turner is in line for about half a million dollars.
Sundance?
The indie film festival named after Robert Redford’s character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has called Utah home since the late 1970s. After a years in Salt Lake City, the program moved to Park City where it has been running since 1981. Their contract with the city is up for renewal in 2027 and the Sundance Institute decided to take bids from other potential host cities. In addition to staying put in Utah, they’re considering five other bids: Atlanta, Boulder, Louisville, Santa Fe and Cincinnati. In a press release announcing the finalists, Sundance officials emphasized the importance of establishing a “sustainable future” for the event.
Festival director Eugene Hernandez expressed appreciation for the range of submissions they received and said they felt “buoyed” by the enthusiasm of the response.
“Getting to six finalists was a difficult decision,” he added. “Each of these cities has a vibrant creative ecosystem, either expanding or established, and has enabled creativity to flourish in their cities through their support of the arts.”
In a statement, Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval bragged about Film Cincinnati’s track record developing the region as “a go-to community for movies.”
“We know how to nurture creative talent and the skilled workers behind the scenes, and we know how to celebrate them when they are on the big screen,” Pureval said. “Easily accessible to so much of the U.S. population, the Queen City is also a big league city for broader tourism, handling major events with professionalism and capacity.”
The mayor described his city and the festival as “on the precipice for great change.”
DeWine was no less thrilled about making Sundance’s shortlist.
“Whatever the entertainment is — creative, cultural, or sports — Cincinnati is known for being a city that knows how to do big things,” DeWine said. “We love to roll out the red carpet and will do the same for a festival as iconic as Sundance.”
