Oklahoma’s booming film industry is getting attention from Texas

For a very brief period, Taylor Sheridan’s hit television series starring Sylvester Stallone had the working title “Kansas City Mob.” But at the time, Missouri had no state funding to support films.

“Tulsa King” was born.

“We had the incentive, so we got the name,” said Rachel Cannon, founder of Prairie Surf Studios in Oklahoma City, where much of the series’ first season was filmed.

As more and more funding was pumped into Oklahoma for its rebate program, major productions began collecting. The incentives helped attract the film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, and the popular TV show “Reservation Dogs.”

Eventually, Oklahoma’s program grew to $30 million, slightly more year-over-year than what was on offer in the much larger state of Texas. The Texas celebrities noted that they successfully urged lawmakers last year to increase funding for the program to $200 million over the next two years, from $45 million. Now, Oklahoma is seeking legislation that would more than double its offering.

And this is how the Red River rivalry moved from football to cinema.

“They’re going well,” actor Dennis Quaid, a Houston native, said in an interview about Oklahoma and its movie incentives. “But there is no reason why competition should be unhealthy for everyone.”

A similar border war is brewing in Oklahoma. When Mr. Quaid, Matthew McConaughey, Glen Powell, Woody Harrelson, and Owen Wilson joined forces in a video last year to call on Texans to support more film and television funding, they delivered some hilarious jabs at Oklahoma, which is preparing for a counterattack. .

“Thirty million dollars is not enough,” Oklahoma Gov. Matt Bennell, who has been pushing a bill that would increase Oklahoma’s incentives to $80 million annually, said in an interview in his office. A separate legislative effort would add several million just for episodic television series that include live studio audiences.

“We have to maintain our competitiveness,” he added.

For many years, the barren plains and wide skies of Oklahoma did not exude Hollywood dynamism. But the state is the cradle of prosperity, and it is a state with an endless appetite for opportunity. So Oklahoma made a big bet on filming incentives.

Killers of the Flower Moon received more than $4 million in incentives to film in Pawhuska, with more payments pending. “Reservation Dogs” filmed a pilot episode and three seasons in and around Okmulgee with the help of $12.8 million in state funding, and “Tulsa King” took a $14.1 million rebate for episodes it shot in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma film and TV fans insist there’s plenty of room for more.

In recent months, the summer hit “Twisters,” a remake of the 1996 film “Twister,” has taken over Prairie Surf, 1.3 million square feet of production space in the former Oklahoma City convention center.

“The only way I lose is if we don’t have enough money to give,” said Ms. Cannon, who has a framed editorial cartoon of the tax breaks and Mr. Stallone hanging in her office.

The Cherokee Tribe, in northeastern Oklahoma, also decided the film was a good investment. It has a film office, a state-of-the-art soundstage, and an incentive program.

“When we bring movies here, it hits Georgia or it hits Texas,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., chief of the Cherokee Nation. “And if you’re from Oklahoma, you really want Texas to come in second“.

The film industry, emphasizing the potential return on investment, says states are competing for an industry that creates good jobs and boosts the local economy.

“The fact that 38 states have implemented programs with bipartisan support to stimulate film, television and streaming production is due to the proven economic impact of the industry,” Cathy Banuelos, senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association, said in a statement.

Andrea Sporsek-Klund, director of the Missouri Film Office, knows what it feels like to not be one of the 38 films. For years, the state has been bemoaning the fact that “Ozark,” the hit Netflix film featuring the Lake of the Ozarks, was a hit. Filmed in Georgia.

Ms. Sporsek-Klund said she and her colleagues at a trade show began raising red flags every time someone asked whether Missouri had incentives for photography.

“It was pages and pages of record labels, and it was the end of the conversation,” she recalled. “We would say: We have no incentive, and they would leave.”

By 2023, after the loss of both “Ozark” and “Tulsa King,” Missouri lawmakers passed the Show MO Act, which restarted the state’s dormant film and television incentive program.

Now Oklahoma is the one left at the altar. Season 2 of Tulsa King will be filmed primarily in Atlanta, in a state that has an unspecified tax incentive program.

Showgoers did not choose Tulsa strictly because of Oklahoma’s rebate program, according to an executive associated with the show, who requested anonymity to share knowledge about sensitive discussions. The executive said the decision to move to Georgia was made mostly because cast and crew members are more readily available there.

Ms. Cannon was left with the impression that the move was largely financial.

“They didn’t give us a reason not to stay, other than I knew they didn’t get enough money,” she said.

Oklahoma also has to be increasingly concerned about the movies and shows it attracts from Texas, which is doing what it does best: building big.

Last year, Stray Vista Studios, the state’s largest virtual production space, opened in Dripping Springs, 25 miles west of Austin. Hill Country Studios, a 200-acre production center in San Marcos, is expected to open its first seven soundstages next year. A 600-acre project in Bastrop, an hour’s drive from San Marcos, is also on the way.

““Most Texans like to be bigger and better than everyone else, not just Oklahomans,” said For Price, a House member who last session sponsored an unsuccessful bill that would have created an entirely new incentive program.

Supporters of the effort say it would create more stable financing, in part by granting transferable tax breaks for production. (The state’s current program uses cash grants.) Chase Musselwhite, who helps lead a coalition called Media for Texas, said a new video featuring Texas celebrities will be coming soon. By 2025, it hopes to have a new bill to introduce to the Legislature.

How much funding will the group seek?

Ms. Musselwhite noted that Georgia’s program has no cap, and that New York and California are able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year. “So we want to be in that space,” she said. “To be able to compete that much will be the goal.”

Mr. Quaid was more precise.

“The next time we come back, we will ask for a billion dollars,” he said.