With the Paramount+ prequel collection “Dexter: Original Sin” going again in time to discover the formative experiences of 20-year-old avenging serial killer (Patrick Gibson), there’s a hope that it’ll assist flip again the clock for the manufacturing neighborhood in Miami, which serves because the setting for each it and the unique present, “Dexter” (2006-2013). Like its predecessor, “Dexter: Original Sin” does the majority of its taking pictures in Los Angeles and Long Beach, nevertheless it’s nonetheless commercial for what Miami has to supply producers.
“We wanted to get the full impact of the beauty and the texture and the architecture, the water and the atmosphere that is specific in Miami,” says Danielle Blumstein, co-head of manufacturing for Counterpart Studios, which produces the collection with Showtime Studios. “We looked for locations that would help ground us and kind of celebrate that city.”
“Dexter” is one in all a number of Miami-set initiatives which have materialized in current months, together with the Netflix medical present “Pulse,” which shoots in each Miami and Albuquerque, N.M., and Peacock’s upcoming crime thriller collection “M.I.A.”
An enormous purpose for the uptick in manufacturing is the High Impact Film Fund. Launched by Miami-Dade County in May 2024 in response to the state of Florida’s continued unwillingness to reestablish a movie and TV incentive, it gives a money rebate of as much as 20%. Productions should have a minimal funds of $5 million, base 90% of the Florida shoot within the county and have 60% of the below-the-line crew be county residents and 70% of their distributors be domestically registered companies.
“The program has been a great success,” says Miami-Dade County movie commissioner Marco Giron. “We’ve managed to attract large scale projects to Miami-Dade County that otherwise would not have been in our region.”
The metropolis of Miami Beach additionally gives its personal incentive, stackable with the county’s, that targets smaller productions, together with commercials, which aren’t eligible for many applications. Projects taking pictures three days or extra with a minimal spend of $25,000 can qualify for a $10,000 money rebate.
“We call it the small-but-mighty film incentive,” says Lissette Garcia Arrogante, director of tourism and tradition for town of Miami Beach. Also, “our film permits are free, we don’t charge you for square footage fees, and we give you some free vehicle access passes for shooting on the beachfront.”
Miami-Dade is sweetening the pot additional by way of a partnership with the Commonwealth of the Bahamas that requires the latter to create a movie and TV incentive that may be stacked with the High Impact Film Fund.
It may appear redundant, on condition that each locales are identified for his or her seashores, however Miami’s are backed by an city skyline, whereas the Bahamas’ have a extra remoted really feel and boast turquoise waters nearly as clear as a swimming pool. The archipelago additionally gives a novel island tradition
“In the Bahamas you get, music, you get festivals, you get interesting foods … the way people speak,” says Bahamas movie commissioner Clarence Rolle. “And it’s just a tropical feast when it comes to the scenery, the look.”
Scheduled to launch in March, the Bahamas incentive will provide a 30% rebate for initiatives with a minimal native spend of $100,000. But the rebate solely applies to the primary $120,000 of expenditures.
Miami-Dade’s incentive additionally has some limitations, notably it’s $10 million annual cap, which successfully retains big-budget tentpole options from basing the whole thing of their shoot within the county. In distinction, its neighbor to the north, Georgia, has an uncapped movie and TV tax credit score program that pays out greater than a billion {dollars} yearly. This is why 2024’s Miami-set “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” which had a reported funds of $100 million, did the majority of its taking pictures in Atlanta, spending only some weeks in Florida.
“If you want to shoot South Beach, it’s pretty hard to re-create it somewhere else, so that helps us,” says James (Jimmy) Roberts, enterprise supervisor of IATSE Local 477 in Miami, the union that reps the vast majority of the crew members engaged on movie, tv and business initiatives within the state. But given what’s accessible in Georgia, “it’s kind of irresponsible to go somewhere else from a fiscal perspective.”
It was competitors from Georgia and Louisiana (which boasts a tax credit score of as much as 40%) that led the Florida legislature to cross an incentive bundle in 2010 that provided a 20% base tax credit score, with further 5% bumps for taking pictures within the low season (June 1-Nov. 30) and family-friendly productions, for a possible complete of 30%.
The incentive helped maintain USA Net work’s long-running “Burn Notice” (2007-2013) within the state and attracted collection corresponding to Netflix’s “Bloodline,” Starz’s “Magic City” and HBO’s “Ballers,” starring Dwayne Johnson, in addition to options together with “Step Up Revolution” and the Los Angeles-set “Rock of Ages,” starring Tom Cruise. But the Florida legislature let the motivation expire in 2016. Subsequently, “Bloodline” was cancelled and “Ballers” relocated to Los Angeles, after taking pictures two sea sons in Miami, to make the most of California’s tax credit score.
“When we did ‘Burn Notice,’ we had a community of vendors that really weren’t directly related to film,” says veteran manufacturing supervisor E.Okay. Keratsis. “Dry cleaners, bodegas, food delivery — little mom and little pop places that thrived on our backs. A lot of those small places closed up. They either went to Georgia or just shut down.”
Absent massive Hollywood initiatives, the native Miami crew base has subsisted totally on business shoots that come from all over the world to make the most of the attractive seashores, year-round sunshine and a gradual stream of actuality exhibits corresponding to “The Real Housewives of Miami” and “Love & Hip Hop: Miami.” It additionally vastly advantages from the presence of Spanish-language tv giants Telemundo and Univision, which have massive studio complexes in Miami and close by Doral, respectively, and usher in main occasions just like the Latin Grammys and the Billboard Awards which have a trickle-down impact on employment.
For instance, “the Billboard Awards put on a small concert series. Their agency hired a production company out of Los Angeles, who then in turn hires us to produce and film the entire concert,” explains director of pictures Adolfo Ferro of Miami-based Fifty Three Films. “And then through out that concert, you have other activations happening. You have Pizza Hut, doing interviews in one area; you’ve got Burger King doing interviews in another. Everyone just kind of takes advantage of the hub and the amount of talent that’s coming down here.”
Not all of the undertaking circulate is incoming: In December, it was reported that the Apple+ collection “Bad Monkey,” which shot its first season on Florida places together with Miami, can be taking pictures its second season in California, the place it had certified for $20.6 million in tax credit. But filmmakers like Harmony Korine, who’s shot a string of flicks in Florida together with “Spring Breakers” (2012) and “Baby Invasion” (2024), are decided to remain put, come what could.
“Harmony’s whole thing is, yes, he cares about the incentives, but for him, when he gets stuck on an area and he likes [it], he’s going to shoot here no matter what,” says “Baby Invasion” producer Judd Allison. “Instead of doing some of the huge budget stuff, we’ve done some independent films and we’re still able to work here.”