It was way too cold to break any sort of ground today. Especially the kind still covered by a few inches of snow, and especially on the waterfront property framing the Kill Van Kull, the tidal strait that separates Staten Island, New York and Bayonne, New Jersey — the future site of 1888 Studios.
1888 Studios, named for the year Thomas Edison more or less invented the video camera (in New Jersey!), has been conceived as a 58-acre facility with 1.1 million square feet of production space across 23 soundstages, all of which will have 40-foot ceilings. Paramount, its anchor tenant, will occupy 285,000 of those square feet for a minimum period of 10 years. This morning, the gathered celebrated the groundbreaking with coffee, breakfast pastries and an unplowed parking lot.
Since you couldn’t break ground with a jackhammer this morning, the 10 VIPs shoveled fresh ceremonial soil instead. A few of them, including outgoing New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, gleefully tossed a few shovelfuls at the media. He said it was for the photo op, but after eight years of press coverage, there was probably something cathartic at play too. I’d do the same.
1888 Studios’ origins is such a New Jersey story. It was Jon Bon Jovi who first brought the site’s developer Arki Busson together with Gov. Murphy and the first lady Tammy Murphy. No word on if it was at a diner, but probably. In 18-24 months, the governor estimates, it’ll be operational. No word on if Bruce Springsteen played a role in bringing Lionsgate to Newark, where just five days ago ground was broken on the 12-acre Great Point Studios campus.
Back to Bayonne, from inside a tent that I’m told was heated, an endless train of important people (including both Murphys and Busson, no Bon Jovi) responsible for the development of the land — a former Texaco site, and thus “an environmental disaster,” per the governor (it’s been remediated) — spoke for more than an hour. They also gave us hoodies.
Paramount’s head of global operations Jose Turkienicz called it “a beautiful day for our industry and our community.”
“Today marks a major step forward” toward “scaling our production and expanding our slate,” he said.
The local movers and shakers offered a lot of reminders of New Jersey’s rich film history. Sen. Raj Mukherji summed it up best.
“This is the birthplace of film,” he said. “We came first, and we’re not ‘Hollywood East.’ Hollywood was and will now again return to its rightful place as ‘New Jersey West.’”
He started a whole thing, which included Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis very Bayonne-ly announcing that New Jersey is “nobody’s stepchild.”
Gov. Murphy was the headline act, but his wife was the real celebrity today.
Tuesday was a love fest for first lady Tammy Murphy, and she deserved every moment. Together, husband-and-wife, self-described BFFs and bankers-turned-public-servants Phil and Tammy Murphy brought the film and TV industry (back) to New Jersey by reinstating — and heavily promoting — one of the more generous tax incentive programs in the nation. Here, from the shores of Bayonne to the shores of Atlantic City (and everywhere in-between) qualified film, TV and digital productions are eligible for a tax credit of up to 40 percent their production expenses. Phil Murphy held the power, but Tammy Murphy had the passion.
Within Murphy’s first year in office, he and the first lady traveled to California to bring their message directly to Hollywood. It was their “Jersey chutzpah” that got it across, Tammy Murphy said.
“This is where you should be, so come here and we’ll show you,” she pitched the Paramounts of the world.
The Murphys “personally are responsible for everything good that’s happened in film and television (in New Jersey),” NJEDA (New Jersey Economic Development Authority) CEO Tim Sullivan said on Tuesday. “Particularly the first lady.”
Under the stewardship of the Murphys and Sullivan, New Jersey has become a serious player in TV and film production. In the most-recent quarter, the Garden State saw the biggest growth year-over-year in filming count and production spend of any state in the U.S., per industry tracker ProdPro, with 24 projects shooting and $400 million in spend.
“We are now a very significant global player in film and television,” Gov. Murphy said.
If it feels like we’ve been here before, well, we have. In May.
Forty-four miles south (over the Bayonne Bridge, across the Verrazano, down the Garden State Parkway…) and seven months ago, Gov. Murphy, Ted Sarandos and I broke ground at Netflix’s new Ft. Monmouth campus. OK, so I didn’t get a shovel, but I did get a hardhat. (We all did.)
Netflix Fort Monmouth will have 500,000 square feet of production space, all to the streamer. The big question is: which of those two major studio spaces, Ft. Monmouth and 1888 Studios, will also house Warner Bros. productions upon opening? Currently, it’s advantage Monmouth County of course, as Netflix has the actual accepted deal here. But Paramount won’t go down without a fight — it’ll fit in perfectly in Bayonne.
The Hollywood Reporter asked Murphy on Tuesday if he sees one site as the better future home to Warner Bros. productions this side of Burbank.
“No. We know both studios at the highest levels — we’ve known Netflix a lot longer, but deep respect for both houses,” Murphy said. “It’s one of those may the best team win.”
(“We know them at the highest levels and they’re another first-class operation,” he said of Lionsgate, his new Newark anchor tenant.)
The man is unflappable. Still, Murphy told us his “favorite movie of all time” is The Godfather, brought to us by Paramount. (Same.) Advantage: Paramount? In history, sure.
“You walk into their offices — you walk into any of these offices — Netflix is the same way and all the big studios — and immediately you’re overwhelmed by film [and] TV and it’s really cool,” Gov. Murphy told THR.
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