Lights, Camera, Subsidies

Beacon has long called “Cut!” on film incentives, yet these corporate welfare flops are a recurring character in our Pork Report. Most recently, the millions of tax dollars for 9-1-1: Nashville took home the “prestigious” title of Pork of the Year in the 2025 Pork Report.

Despite the “riveting” scenes of bachelorettes bleeding all over Broadway, instead of cancelling these failing series of incentives, this year’s proposed state budget increases them by $20 million. Despite decades of data showing how film incentives are an abysmal return on investment, recent budget discussions at the state capitol are changing the channel to hear more favorable statements from the very department that hands out the incentives—that these incentives are basically money-making machines, bringing in seven dollars in economic value for each dollar the state puts in. Of course, this number is fairly standard in reports published by the motion picture industry, but economists see it differently. The jobs that come along with production generally go to well-paid, non-residents, while positions for state residents are spotty, temporary, and lower paying. Even Georgia, dubbed “Hollywood of the South,” saw a return of just 19 cents on the dollar for their film incentives. 

States like Michigan, which saw a loss of 89 cents per dollar on incentives, went on to repeal their film incentive program due to such poor returns. Research shows that most of the states that have terminated their programs or severely reduced their incentive spending have actually seen a decrease in the state’s unemployment. Far from glitz and glamour, film incentives are a bad use of taxpayer dollars and fundamentally not a core function of government. If these dollars have to be spent, wouldn’t funding more real-life first responders be more of a benefit to Tennesseans than actors playing them on TV?