A renewed push to lure major Hollywood studios to Nevada with favorable tax incentives hit a major plot twist last week when Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was partnering with Sony Pictures Entertainment and Howard Hughes Holdings on tentative plans to construct “a 31-acre world-class production facility anchoring a planned 100-acre mixed-use development” in Summerlin.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s foray into the Summerlin Production Studios Project came less than two months after the company backed out of its commitment to invest $8.5 billion into a rival studio project at UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park. Both proposals hinge on the Nevada Legislature passing a pair of competing bills designed to overhaul the state’s film tax credit system.
The Summerlin development is tied to Assembly Bill 238, which would provide up to $1.8 billion in tax breaks for qualifying productions made in Nevada, beginning in mid-2028 and continuing through 2043. That includes $95 million per year in transferable tax credits for film infrastructure and productions filmed at the new studio, plus a separate annual pool of $25 million in non-transferable credits for those that shoot elsewhere in Nevada. It would also set aside additional funding for grants meant to bolster the talent pipeline through education and industry-specific workforce development opportunities.
Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui of Las Vegas, who’s co-sponsoring the bill along with her Democratic counterpart Daniele Monroe-Moreno, has said the plan is expected to create nearly 18,000 permanent jobs and generate $3 billion in annual economic activity once the Summerlin studio is up and running.
Behind the scenes of “Margaret the Brave.”
“We are the entertainment capital of the world, and there is no better example of that than this partnership between two of the world’s major film and television studios,” Jauregui said in a statement.
Senate Bill 220, sponsored by Las Vegas Democrat Roberta Lange, would gradually raise the state’s transferable film tax credit cap to $83 million per year by July 2028 until it’s phased out in 2043, plus an additional $15 million in annual nontransferable credits. It would also pave the way for studio space and hands-on educational programs at the Nevada Studios Project at UNLV. That facility is linked to a deal between Birtcher Development and The Manhattan Beach Studios Group, which signed on in Warner Bros. Discovery’s stead.
Both bills represent a fundamental overhaul of Nevada’s existing film incentives system, which sets an annual film credit cap at $10 million total and $6 million for any single production. Prior to the Warner Bros. Discovery revelation, Lange noted that she believed the bills would have to be combined at some point before the legislative session ends on June 2.
Lange, who calls herself “the architect of the film idea in Nevada,” previously spearheaded a bill in the 2023 session that would have vaulted Nevada’s annual film tax credit cap up to $190 million. But it failed to pass through either chamber.
“It came too late to really make it through all the channels, but we had the support in both houses,” Lange says. “I’ve said for a year and a half now that if they’re going to have a bill in this session, we need to merge it.”
If the two parties do end up collaborating on a unified bill, the Summerlin Studios camp may hold a greater share of the bargaining chips with Sony and Warner Bros. Discovery in its corner. It also has backing from union groups like the Southern Nevada Building Trades Unions, which recently announced a work agreement with Sony and Howard Hughes that it said would “bring over 10,000 union construction jobs” to the Valley.
On the workforce development side, Lange’s bill would directly reinvest 10% of the value of all film tax credits awarded to each production back into the proposed Nevada Media and Technology Lab at UNLV. The Assembly version would establish the Nevada Partners Vocational Training Studio by 2030 and offer a similar 1% match plus additional grants.
This new, home-grown class of industry professionals could someday work on a project with local film talents like Danny Chandia, a third-generation Las Vegas native who recently won the Boulder City-based Dam Short Film Festival’s Best Nevada Filmmaker Award for his writing and directorial work on short film Margaret the Brave.
“I have every hope and faith that they can get that pushed through,” Chandia says, adding that his latest work featured a primarily local cast and crew of around 300. “As local filmmakers, all we can do on our end is show our readiness for a studio system to move in.”
But opponents view the film tax credit saga as a distraction from more pressing issues.
“Nevadans are relying on lawmakers to address this state’s most urgent needs—housing, the cost of living, education—all areas that, if improved, would help diversify the economy without unprecedented tax credits subsidizing corporate bottom lines. At this point, Nevada can’t afford anything less,” Battle Born Progress executive director Shelbie Swartz wrote in a statement.
In early February, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo indicated his own skepticism after notably failing to factor either of the bills into his recent state budget.
“I just don’t see that being good policy, good investments for the constituents and the state of Nevada,” he told KTNV.
Both pieces of legislation are subject to revisions throughout the legislative session in Carson City. Assembly Bill 238 went through a five-hour initial hearing at the Assembly Committee on Revenue on February 27, with dozens speaking for and against it during public comment. Senate Bill 220 has yet to be scheduled for a hearing.
