Rob Lowe's 5,000-Mile Commute: Why US Film Production Needs a Federal Tax Credit

Rob Lowe flies more than 5,000 miles from Los Angeles to Limerick, Ireland, to film each season of his Fox game show "The Floor" — and the math says that is still cheaper for Fox than shooting in California. That is the opening argument Mike Farah, president of the Producers Guild of America, makes in a Los Angeles Times column calling for a federal production incentive to bring filmed entertainment back to the United States.

Farah, who began serving as PGA president alongside co-president Donna Gigliotti, writes that "The Floor" could theoretically be produced on Fox's own lot in Century City or on any of hundreds of vacant stages across Los Angeles. Instead, Fox flies its host and dozens of American contestants to Europe, where Irish crews handle the set building, carpentry, sound, makeup, transport and security. American craftspeople and trades workers are left behind with no work.

What do the numbers show?

An EY Quantitative Economics and Statistics study tracked film and television production locations from 1999 to 2024. The decline in U.S.-based work is steep:

• The share of studio budgets spent on TV episodes with significant U.S.-based production fell from 94% to 64%.
• The share of budgeted money spent on films with significant U.S.-based production fell from 74% to 42%.

Farah is candid about his own contribution to the trend. He recently served as executive producer of an NBC dating show that shipped 12 American bachelors to London for a pilot hosted by Anna Faris. The American talent flew over; the British crew took the production jobs.

Why are productions leaving?

The mechanism, in Farah's telling, is simple arithmetic rather than wanderlust. Ireland and 64 other countries offer national incentives that make it cheaper for American studios and networks to shoot abroad. The United States has never offered a national incentive of its own.

"They're doing it because Ireland and 64 other countries around the world offer incentives that make it cheaper for American studios and networks to shoot there instead of here," Farah writes. State-level tax credits exist across the country, but they are no match for national programs elsewhere, he argues.

What would the proposed law do?

The proposed Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act would create a federal production incentive that stacks on top of existing state credits. According to the Motion Picture Assn., the proposal could inject an estimated $250 billion into the U.S. economy and deliver nearly 145,000 new jobs every year across all 50 states.

The bill includes bonus incentives for three categories:

• Independent productions
• Projects that film in underserved rural areas
• Productions that bring jobs to communities in federal disaster zones

AI-generated analysis accompanying the column notes the bill would provide a 20% base credit on qualifying U.S. production labor, with bonuses that could raise the rate to 30%. The MPA-backed projection of 143,500 full-time-equivalent jobs in an average year is a forecast, not an established result.

Who is pushing back?

The proposal faces real opposition. Representative Rich McCormick has objected to federal subsidies amid deficit spending and said the measure should be assessed for how much it returns to taxpayers. No revenue estimate for the bill is currently available, and its transferable credit structure — which lets producers use or sell credits — could raise its cost.

A Mackinac Center review cited in the analysis argues that evidence for broad spillover benefits and a strong economic multiplier from production incentives is weak, and that such programs can fail to generate positive returns for governments. The New York Times reported that states have already distributed at least $25 billion in film incentives, raising the question of whether layering a federal program on top is the best use of public funds.

What happens next?

Farah frames the stakes as existential for domestic production in a global digital market. "Our entertainment industry needs a federal law to allow local production to compete in an increasingly global environment, incentivize local TV and film production and keep jobs here at home," he writes.

His closing line makes the case personal: "It's time for 145,000 people (and one Rob Lowe) to get back to work here at home." Whether Congress shares that urgency — and whether the missing revenue estimate materializes — will determine if the century-old logic of location incentives finally reaches Washington.

By Elena Vasquez