Hawaii film productions to bring economic boost | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Hawaii’s film industry is seeing a surge of activity, with three major productions now underway across the islands — a major boost for a sector that has struggled to stay competitive amid rising costs and stalled tax credit reforms.

Netflix’s second season of “Untamed,” Jason Momoa’s action‑comedy “Protecting Jared,” and the third film in the “Jumanji” franchise have all begun, marking one of the busiest periods for local filming in recent years.

In “Untamed,” Special Agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana) investigates a series of mysterious events at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. “Protecting Jared” follows a Hawaiian security guard (Momoa) and a tech billionaire (Andy Samberg) who become entangled in a kidnapping plot.

Hawaii favorite Dwayne Johnson is also set to return as Dr. Xander “Smolder” Bravestone in the next installment of the “Jumanji” franchise.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green praised the projects for “bringing global attention and real economic opportunity to our islands.”

“These productions create hundreds of jobs for local crew, actors and vendors, while supporting small businesses across our communities — from catering and transportation to equipment, hotels and construction,” Green said in statement. “The film industry is a key part of Hawaii’s creative economy, allowing talented local storytellers and technicians to build careers here at home while sharing the beauty and stories of Hawaii with audiences around the world.”

James Tokioka, director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, said in a statement, “Keeping Hawaii primed for production to meet and continually attract these opportunities is essential to our creative economy and workforce and for generating the positive impacts productions have across other key sectors.”

Hawaii State Film Commissioner Donne Dawson told the Honolulu Star-
Advertiser that those impacts extend far beyond the set and the hiring of local talent. “Any given series can have 1,200 vendors and they’re all local,” she said. “The cast and crew have to live somewhere, they have to shop, and they pay GET on everything.”

Major productions, she added, spend heavily on everything from cars and housing to medical services to food and catering.

Productions that are shot in Hawaii have a ripple effect that boosts the islands’ economy for years after they wrap. Dawson pointed to HBO television series, “The White Lotus,” where 13 episodes were shot on the grounds of the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea during the COVID lockdown. Five years later, she said fans of the show are still coming to stay at the resort and take selfies at the places seen in the series.

“The enormous crossover and the validation of tourism and film can’t be understated,” Dawson said. “There’s a whole ‘White Lotus’ experience now at Four Seasons that people book specifically to come for.”

Honolulu Film Commissioner Walea Constantinau told the Star-Advertiser that the promotional value of Hawaii-made film projects is “evergreen,” noting that visitors still flock to Kualoa Ranch three decades after “Jurassic Park” premiered.

“A lot of modern travelers like to experience, and get a sense that they’re engaged in, (the places) where the films were shot. The growth of the movie location tour business has helped (the ranch owners) keep the ranch as one of the last remaining ahupuaa,” Constantinau said. “The opportunity to do something that became well known on a mass media scale allowed them to then springboard and do other things.”

But despite the proven economic benefits, Hawaii entered 2025 without any network scale shows filming in the state.

The consequences became clear when Jason Momoa’s Apple + series “Chief of War,” a historical drama about Hawaii’s wars of unification in the 1790s, premiered last August. Momoa said he would have shot all nine episodes in Hawaii if the costs had penciled out. But they didn’t and instead most of the production moved to New Zealand — and so did the jobs and spending.

That loss looms large as lawmakers again consider raising the state’s film tax credit and per-production cap, reforms that nearly passed last year before dying in committee. Industry leaders say that the decisions that the Legislature makes this session will
affect Hawaii’s competitiveness for years.

Georja Skinner, chief officer at DBEDT’s Creative Industries Division, said in a statement, “Studios budget years in advance and incentives are key to planning where productions choose to shoot on location, amplified by an environment that encourages sound business and robust creative capacity.”

Dawson believes that this is the year to “hit a home run,” noting that the governor, House and Senate appear aligned on the need to strengthen the credit.

Green said in a social media update on March 6, ” We want a lot more films here and that’s why the Legislature is stepping up and doing enhanced tax credits bringing that business here to our state and our people.”

Dawson supports raising the incentive to 27% on Oahu and 32% on the neighbor islands — up from 22% and 27% — and increasing the per production cap from $17 million to $23 million.

“If we had had something like $23-million, larger streaming productions, like ‘Chief of War,’ may have been able to do much more here, and that’s important,” she said.

Dawson also is pushing for an additional percentage of tax credit or incentive bonus added to the base rate for “indigenous or cultural content,” for clearer language confirming that streaming productions are also eligible for tax credits, and for the extension of the bill to 2038 instead of 2033.

“Series are incredibly important — that’s the part of the market we really need to rebuild,” Dawson said.

She noted that the industry overall has shrunk. Major networks are producing fewer shows, and the budgets for those projects continue to get smaller.

Dawson added that the global consolidation of media companies has had ripple effects in Hawaii, just as it has across the rest of the country.

“A lot of things are changing around us,” she said. “But the benefit of passing a credit this year will be fiscally responsible in bringing business to the state, and keeping our people here rather than having them leave to find work elsewhere.”