For a very short time, Taylor Sheridan’s hit television series starring Sylvester Stallone had the working title “Kansas City Mob.” But at the time, Missouri had no state funding for film subsidies.
“Tulsa King” was born.
“We had an incentive, so we got the name,” said Rachel Cannon, the founder of Prairie Surf Studios in Oklahoma City, where much of the show’s first season was filmed.
As Oklahoma poured more funds into its rebate program, the main production came to collect. The incentives helped attract “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an Oscar nominee for best picture, and the popular television show “Reservation Dogs.”
Eventually, Oklahoma’s program grew to $30 million, slightly more money on an annual basis than what was offered in the larger state of Texas. Prominent Texans have taken note, successfully lobbying lawmakers last year to increase funding for the program to $200 million for the next two years, up from $45 million. Now, Oklahoma is pursuing legislation that would double its offerings.
And that’s how the Red River Rivalry flowed from football to film.
“They have a good thing,” actor Dennis Quaid, a Houston native, said in an interview about Oklahoma and its film incentives. “But there’s no reason why competition can’t be healthy for everyone.”
A similar border war is brewing in Oklahoma. When Mr. Quaid, Matthew McConaughey, Glen Powell, Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson joined forces in a video last year to call on Texans to support more funding for film and TV, they took some playful jabs at Oklahoma, preparing its counterpunch.
“Thirty million is not enough,” Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, who has been pushing the bill that would increase Oklahoma’s incentives to $80 million annually, his office said in an interview. A separate legislative effort will add many millions just for episodic television series with a live studio audience.
“We have to stay competitive,” he said.
For years, the arid plains and wide skies of Oklahoma did not glow with Hollywood dynamism. But the state is a birthplace of the boom, one with an endless appetite for opportunity. So Oklahoma made a big bet on film production incentives.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” received more than $4 million in incentives for filming in the city of Pawhuska, with more payments pending. “Reservation Dogs” filmed a pilot and three seasons in and around Okmulgee with the help of $12.8 million in state funding, and “Tulsa King” got a $14.1 million rebate for episodes it filmed in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma movie and TV buffs insist there is many rooms for more.
In recent months, the expected summer blockbuster “twisters,” a reboot of the 1996 film “Twister,” replaced Prairie Surf, which has 1.3 million square feet of production space in Oklahoma City’s former convention center.
“The only way I’m going to lose is if we don’t have enough money to offer,” Ms. Cannon, with a framed editorial cartoon involving tax credits and Mr. Stallone hanging in his office.
The Cherokee Nation, in northeastern Oklahoma, also decided the film was a good investment. It has a film office, a cutting-edge soundstage and an incentive program.
“When we bring movies here, Georgia strikes out or Texas strikes out,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., the chief chief of the Cherokee Nation. “And if you’re from Oklahoma, you really want Texas to come in second.”
The film industry, emphasizing the potential return on investment, said states are competing for an industry that creates good jobs and boosts local economies.
“The fact that 38 states have implemented programs with bipartisan support to incentivize film, television and streaming productions is due to the proven economic impact of the industry,” said Kathy Bañuelos, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association, in a statement.
Andrea Sporcic Klund, the director of the Missouri Film Office, knows what it’s like to not be one of the 38. For years, the state has been wise to the fact that “Ozark,” the Netflix hit featuring the Lake of the Ozarks, was filmed in Georgia.
said Ms. Sporcic Klund said that at a trade show, he and his colleagues started making red marks every time someone asked if Missouri had film production incentives.
“It was pages and pages of tally scores, and it was an end of the conversation,” he recalls. “We’ll say, ‘We have no incentive,’ and they’ll leave.”
By 2023, after both “Ozark” and “Tulsa King” were gone, Missouri lawmakers passed the Show the MO Actwhich restarted the state’s dormant film and TV incentive program.
Now Oklahoma is left at the altar. The second season of “Tulsa King” will be shot primarily in Atlantain a state with an uncapped tax incentive program.
The showrunners didn’t choose Tulsa strictly because of Oklahoma’s rebate program, according to an executive connected to the show, who asked to remain anonymous to share perspective on sensitive discussions. And the decision to move to Georgia, the executive said, was made mostly because actors and crew members were more readily available there.
Left to Ms. Cannon gave the impression that the move was largely a financial one.
“They didn’t give us a reason why they chose not to stay,” he said, “other than I know they didn’t get enough money.”
Oklahoma increasingly has to worry about the movies and shows that Texas attracts, doing what it does best: Building big.
Last year, Stray Vista Studios, the state’s largest virtual production space, opened in Dripping Springs, 25 miles west of Austin. Hill Country Studios, a 200-acre production hub in San Marcos, is expected to open its first seven soundstages next year. And a 600-acre project in Bastropan hour’s drive from San Marcos, is also on the way.
“Most Texans want to be bigger and better than everybody else, not just Oklahomans,” said Four Price, a House member who sponsored last session a unsuccessful bill which will create an entirely new incentive program.
Supporters of that effort say it would create more stable financing, in part by giving productions transferable tax credits. (The current state program uses cash grants.) A new video from famous Texans will be out soon, said Chase Musslewhite, who helps lead a coalition called Media for Texas. By 2025, he hopes to have a new bill put before the Legislature.
How much funding will the group seek?
Ms. mentioned Musslewhite said Georgia’s program is unlimited, and New York and California can spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year. “So we want to be in that realm,” he said. “To be as competitive as that is going to be the goal.”
Mr. is more accurate. Quaid.
“The next time we come back,” he said, “we’ll ask for $1 billion.”
