Marvel laments scale of California filming incentive

“We made a handful of the early movies here. We hope to make some in the not-too-distant future here again.”

Marvel has spent the past few years shooting movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (pictured) and Spider-Man: Homecoming at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Georgia, where the state filming incentive is more supportive of big-budget features.

Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are currently continuing this trend, as will Ant-Man and the Wasp this summer. Doctor Strange was a high-profile recent exception and followed the UK’s filming incentives to base itself at Longcross Film Studios near London.

California boosted its filming incentive a couple of years ago but has a heavy emphasis on supporting TV production so it still has only limited appeal to big-budget movies.

Netflix announced last week that it plans to base more of its own productions in California despite the incentive’s shortcomings, to enable crews to be able to go back to their own homes after finishing each shoot day.

Location filming days for features have been erratic in Los Angeles over the past half year, increasing nearly 25% at the end of 2016 and then plummeting 35% in the first three months of this year.

For more on filming in California see our production guide.

Image: Disney/Marvel