$5 million was set aside for small Pa. filmmakers. Harrisburg gave it to M. Night Shyamalan.

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'We didn't want it all to go to one company,' state Rep. Stan Saylor said of the $5 million tax credit. 'It was to be handed out to several small companies vs. big Hollywood studios that could tap into the other money.'

With HBO’s Mare of Easttown and other big-budget productions taking most of Pennsylvania’s film subsidies, small-budget independents felt left out. Few taxpayer subsidies were available for them. So they applauded over the summer when Harrisburg fattened the film tax credit pot by 43% to $100 million and set aside $5 million especially for Pennsylvania-based companies.

The Department of Community and Economic Development , which oversees the Pennsylvania film office, confirmed last Monday in an email that Shyamalan got the tax credit for Knock at the Cabin, a film slated for release in 2023. The state agency said that the law failed to specify how many film-production firms should be awarded a tax credit — and thus it could go to a single firm, instead of the several Saylor envisioned when championing the law.

“His [tax] credits always come from the traditional allotment in Pennsylvania budget, and they should still come from there,” Greenblatt said. “He should be at the front of the line. At the same time, the Pennsylvania Film Office should follow the intent of PA lawmakers to support and encourage more films from local filmmakers and build up the industry in Pennsylvania.

Carballada believes that the state’s “scoring system” — or how the state measures which projects are awarded tax credits and which are not — has become outdated as “the industry has changed tremendously.” According to its film tax credit tracker, the DCED funded nine projects for the most recent fiscal year. Eight of those projects were awarded at least $4 million of tax credits. The biggest was $15.3 million in tax credits for Servant, a TV series for Apple TV+. Shyamalan is listed as one of the executive producers.One of the biggest recipients in recent years was Mare of Easttown, a crime drama, awarded $26.5 million in film tax credits.

DCED received applications that would have totaled about $250 million in film tax credits in the current budget cycle but had the budget to award only $100 million, a state official said.

 

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