Economic Development Minister Barbara Edmonds Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
The government is proposing to rename and tweak its Screen Production Grant after a review, with final details to be shared by the end of July.
Now to be known as the Screen Production Rebate, the changes aim to make it simpler, more competitive, and easier to access.
International and local movies and television productions including Avatar: The Way of Water, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Whina, Mulan, The Power of the Dog, M3GAN, Sweet Tooth, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Evil Dead Rise have all benefited from the rebate, which is administered by the Film Commission.
It offers a 20 percent rebate to international productions, and 40 percent to New Zealand-made films.
Rebates for digital and visual effects have also meant local work on post-production for the likes of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Batman, Black Adam, Cocaine Bear, and Thor: Love and Thunder have also benefited.
The government announced a review late 2021 to assess if the funding was sustainable, but reports last year suggested it was bringing uncertainty and overseas producers were turning away from New Zealand as a filming destination.
Critics including the ACT party last year called for the scheme to be scrapped, saying the subsidy was costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, with $140m spent on the Avatar sequel alone between August 2018 and March 2022.
The proposed changes include:
- Expanding the criteria to include all domestic productions, not just those with "significant New Zealand content"
- Making the requirements for the additional 5 percent rebate which is available to some international productions easier to navigate with clearer, more objective criteria. This currently is offered if productions can show significant economic benefits for New Zealand
- Raising the post-production, digital and visual (PDV) rebate to a flat rate of 20 percent - bringing it in line with other similar rebates - and halving its $500,000 expenditure threshold to $250,000
Economic Development Minister Barbara Edmonds said the changes would make sure New Zealand's "iconic landscape and stories will remain on screen here and overseas".
The government said $1.15 billion had been provided in the rebates since 2014, with those productions spending about $5.2b in New Zealand.
Edmonds said the sector contributed $3.5b to the economy every year, employed more than 13,900 people, and the government wanted to provide certainty.
She said the name change from Grant to Rebate would more accurately reflect that it was a rebate on spending in New Zealand by local and international companies.
The scheme was topped up in this year's Budget, with a further $20.6 million allocated for the 2022/23 year for "provisionally approved" productions on top of the $60m added for the same year in Budget 2022. No further funding beyond this year has yet been set down, however.
"It's like any Budget initiative, you have to have something in the books for what we estimate, however as you probably will know the actual screen sector rebate is uncapped," Edmonds said.
In a statement, Film Commission chair Alastair Carruthers said the announcement provided certainty and showed the government was committed to a flourishing screen sector.
"New Zealand is an extremely desirable destination that makes globally recognised projects and also nurtures and supports the creation of culturally important local content. Today's announcement reaffirms the government's commitment to support this work. We look forward to embracing the new opportunities that will result from these changes."
The commission's chief executive Mladen Ivancic said they would be working hard to make the implementation of the changes as seamless as possible.
Screen Producers Guild (SPADA) president Irene Gardiner said they were very pleased with the changes, saying their concerns had been listened to and the changes were a common-sense response to the needs of the industry.
"There's always been a confusion that the funding is something of a taxpayer gift to screen producers, when nothing could be further from the truth," she said.
"NZSPG productions - both domestic and international - inject millions into the New Zealand economy and in return they get a rebate. That's the international standard.
"We're very pleased that the government continues to see the value of our sector and has enhanced aspects of the SPG to help support and develop our industry and its contribution to New Zealand."
