Posted on: January 9, 2025, 06:06h.
Last updated on: January 9, 2025, 06:13h.
One of two major Hollywood studios proposed for Las Vegas no longer has anyone to build it.
Newport Beach, Calif.’s Birtcher Development is no longer set to construct Warner Bros. Studios Nevada, a 34-acre film complex the studio giant proposed to build at the Harry Reid Research and Technology Park at UNLV. The dissolution of the deal was first reported by The Nevada Independent.
Both Warner Bros. and rival Sony Pictures Entertainment had proposals in play to compete for $190 million in annual transferable Nevada film tax credits promised by a bill that seeks to expand Nevada’s tax credits from its current $10 million.
That bill, SB 496 — introduced by Nevada Senator Roberta Lange (D-LV) during the 2023 legislative session — failed to make it to a floor vote and the legislature did not meet in 2024. (It only meets during odd-numbered years.) However, Lange said she will push the bill during the upcoming state legislative session beginning Feb. 3.
Though the proposed film credits could cost the state $2 billion, the bill’s supporters argue they could earn as much as $55 billion in revenue over the next 20 years.
Tug of Warner
Warner Bros. says it still intends to build its studio if the state still extends the promised tax credits, and is actively seeking a new developer for the job. According to Warner Bros.’ original proposal, the company was to commit $8.5 billion over 17 years.
“We remain committed to creating Warner Bros. Studios Nevada, and excited about the opportunity to bring great jobs, workforce and economic development, and educational opportunities to the state,” a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday.
However, the originally promised tax credits may no longer be on the table. Although both Lange and Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, (D-LV) are expected to introduce new versions of SB 496 this year, each is expected to offer less money in state tax credits.
So it remains to be seen just how interested each studio still is in making Las Vegas, as Mark Wahlberg optimistically phrased it in 2022, “Hollywood 2.0.”
According to Birtcher, the choice to dismantle the deal was not theirs.
“We’re sorry that Warner Bros has decided not to move forward with us,” Brooke Birtcher Gustafson, president of Birtcher Development, said in a statement, adding that Birtcher plans to move ahead with its secondary partner in the deal, Manhattan Beach Studios, an independent studio best known for producing the 2022 film “Avatar: the Way of Water.”
One Major Still in Play
That leaves Sony as the only major Hollywood studio with a plan.
It already has the approval of the Clark County Zoning Commission to allow Howard Hughes Corp. to build the $1.8 billion Summerlin Production Studios on the northeast corner of Flamingo Road and Town Center Drive in Summerlin
Its plans are also contingent on the tax credit expansion passing as originally proposed.
