[Source: Reuters]
As guests milled around a cavernous sound-stage that houses one of the sets from the Amazon Prime Video series “Fallout,” writer and producer Jonathan Nolan hailed the role tax incentives played in bringing the production to California.
The first season of the series, which is a big-budget adaptation of a videogame set in a post-nuclear wasteland, was shot in New York. California was able to lure the production west in its second season, with $25 million in tax rebates.
“If the tax credit wasn’t here, it would be a non-starter and we wouldn’t be able to be here,” said Nolan, seated in a folding lawn chair placed on the set of a “Vault,” a subterranean fallout shelter decorated with the show’s retro-futuristic look.
Nolan played a prominent role in lobbying for California to approve $750 million in tax rebates to bring more film and television production to the state.
He even went so far as to invite state legislators on set last year, to showcase how actors and craftspeople would benefit from the incentives.
“Fallout” remained in California for its third season, thanks to $42 million in tax credits on a budget of $166.3 million which allowed the production to hire nearly 600 crew members and 30 actors, according to the California Film Commission.
Nolan said he and others in the industry had become accustomed to boarding a plane to shoot in London, Budapest or Sydney, without worrying about the possible toll on Hollywood.
