Gov. Phil Murphy details the arc of New Jersey's campaign to bring film and TV production to the Garden State. Murphy also discusses the state of the Democrats and the alarming rise of politically motivated violence aimed at public officials.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today my
guest is Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. Murphy is
cruising into the last nine months of his second term
(00:27):
as the big boss of the Garden State. By any measure,
he's had a successful run. From day one. Murphy put
huge emphasis on making New Jersey a much bigger player
in TV and film location work. In recent years, he's
focused on bringing brick and mortar studio infrastructure to the state.
(00:48):
Murphy details the arc of this campaign and why he
knew it was crucial for New Jersey. Murphy's a rare
breed these days, a popular Democrat. He talks about the
state of his political party and where he thinks leaders
should put their energy, and we talk about what it's
like to be a public figure these days amid rising
(01:12):
incidence of violence, such as the arson attack this week
on the residence of Murphy's fellow Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
That's all coming up after this break, and we're back
(01:36):
with the conversation with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey.
Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, thank you so much
for joining me here today.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thanks for having me well, I know.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You are coming. You're getting down to about the last
eight nine months of your tenure in the State House.
You've had two very successful terms. From my purchet variety,
I have noticed that you personally and the state has
put so much much attention on entertainment, on content creation,
on sound stages, the nitty gritty work of production. You
(02:08):
have really made a point of making New Jersey a
very friendly place to work for people in the business
of shooting visual and audio content. Let me ask, did
you come into the State House with that in mind?
Was this a goal from the get go.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, we thought we could use incentives much more aggressively,
much more carefully, much more targeted as a general matter,
in one of the arenas that we were specifically focused
on from moment one was film, television and digital with evolved.
Having said that, as you rightfully mentioned, we're in year eight.
(02:47):
If you want, if you roll the tape back to
the beginning, it was literally just putting incentives in place.
My predecessor had pulled the program completely, but we migrated.
We tweaked the incentives. I think almost every year since
we've been in office, and we've gone from being really
happy about stuff getting made in New Jersey and we
(03:07):
still are. We love that, we think we've got a
lot to offer, but we have migrated importantly to building
bricks and mortar soundstages campuses, so that some of the
big companies Netflix at the top of the list, lions Gate,
there's a third big one called eighteen eighty eight, which
is named after the year that film was invented. Those
(03:30):
are multi decade decisions to either buy, lease or both.
So we still love it when folks make stuff in
New Jersey around the state, but we have added to
that a very substantial program to actually get sound stages
and campus is built.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And obviously the infrastructure brings that even more permanent jobs
and the ripple effect. I want to talk to you
about both of those polls of what you talked about,
but let's start with the incentives in terms of what
the state is committed to support every year. Am I
right in thinking that it's about five hundred million a year,
that that's the whole budget for the program.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Of late it has been. But it also depends on
where you are on that cycle, particularly I'm building the
bricks and mortar part of it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
How do you make sure that for every dollar that
goes out you're bringing in at least two dollars or
at least a dollar fifty. What are the hard metrics
that you use to judge the efficacy of the program.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
So the folks who don't like film incentives have a
very narrow definition of return, and their argument is that
it's the state that's the actual dollar that gets returned
to the state, which is not the role of the state.
By the way, I'll take all the dollars we can get,
believe me. But our job is to incent economic activity.
(04:54):
Put sum in the water, for instance, and we're not
looking for two dollars back on a dollar. Ever, is
about seven dollars of economic impact for every dollar that
we put on the street. That's in jobs, it's in
local economies, it's in construction trades. You just go across
the whole range. We measure our economy like any other state.
(05:17):
So the GDP, if you will, that is connected to
the hard dollars we put on the street is about
a sevenfold return. Again, most of it not coming back
to the state. The state gets some revenues, but most
of it going into the real economy. And frankly, that's,
among other things, what government should be doing, and this
is working quite well in that respect.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Can you give me, I'm sure you have a number
of practical, anecdotal examples. Can you give me some success
story examples of local businesses that have reaped the benefits
of this influx of activity.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I mean, no matter whether it's a sound stage
or something being made, economies are the big winners. So
it's the coffee shop, the diner, the dry cleaner. And
we have a pretty cool program called film Ready. We
have communities go basically through a if you will, a
(06:15):
boot camp of what to expect if you've got a
film being made in your town. And I say that
because they these towns, it's almost like a good housekeeping
stamp of approval. These towns get it. They know that
the economic the local economy will benefit enormously, and the
filmmakers love it because they've got an informed counterpart that
(06:38):
understands the responsibilities and the opportunities both. So you see
at all levels of society, all levels of our communities.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Do you have any favorite projects that you were able
to either you know, you or the team were able
to help recruit to New Jersey or or came to
the state because you know, because of the very generous
incentives in place.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, Star with Netflix, a near three hundred acre campus,
a near billion dollar investment by them, which will transform
it's in the old Fort Monmouth. It will transform that
part of New Jersey, which happens to be by the
way where we live. It is absolutely the king of
the hill in terms of what we've been able to
(07:20):
do in terms of making stuff. I could give you
a bunch of examples, but Spielberg is probably the name
the gold standard. He made West Side Story here. He's
back in New Jersey this month making another project. He
loves it here.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Is there any opposition to this in the legislature? Has
it been difficult in the beginning to get to get
people to get behind incentives which, as I know you know,
sometimes to outsiders can seem like you're giving money to
Hollywood to make movies.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
This is I'm knocking on wood here. We've been blessed
by bipartisan support on this overwhelmingly and that's been a
huge key here and hopefully it'll stay that way. I
know it's gotten some controversy in other places. A couple
of years ago, Georgia had a big debate again. That
(08:14):
was that debate between the narrow definition of economic impact,
i e. What goes back into the state coffers versus
the broader economic activity. We've escaped that largely, if not entirely,
escaped that, and I think it will continue to stay
that way. In fact, we extended the program a couple
(08:34):
of years ago to twenty thirty nine, which is just
puts it way out beyond the horizon, if you will,
so that you've taken the political fear or concern out
of this equation entirely. And I'm betting that'll that will
stay that way for the years to come.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's impressive that you started from a standing stop. You
did not that you had to be. And let me
ask you your predecessor, Chris Christie. It's famously it's believed
that he yanked the program, that he pulled the state
support for tax incentives because he was unhappy with the
portrayal of the Garden State on MTV's Jersey Shore. Can
(09:15):
you tell US. Is that true? Was there were there
larger forces going on or was it a fit of peak?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah? I can't. I don't have any insights on it.
In fact, I'm way overdue to ask Chris ifitscrew. That's
the sort of that's the legendary reason that people hang
their hat on it. But it led to things like
you know, Boardwalk Empire about Atlantic City getting made in
New York City, which is crazy, that should have been
(09:42):
made in Jersey. And but listen, we've turned the page.
We're now globally significant. I can't tell you now how
many conversations were in where it's okay, it's coming down
to New Jersey, London or some other country. Some we're
in the world, Hungary and New Zealand, but on the
(10:03):
list of late other countries come and go. We're on
that short list and intend to stay there.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
New Jersey can pass for I'm guessing you know, with
enough set dressing can pass for a lot of different climates.
You do have a lot of different whether it's whether
it's cliffs or you know, shore, you've got a lot
to work with.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
We do in a small the nation's fourth small estate geographically.
So not only do we have the diversity of Look,
I think we've got everything, frankly except the desert. But
you could do it very quickly, very easily. Filmmakers producers
looking at budgets love New Jersey for that reason as well,
because you could move around fairly quickly and at a
(10:44):
fairly low level of expense.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Has there been any Have you had any tension or
have you had any coordination with with you know, that
big state to the to the east of you, New York,
which also has you know, put a real investment in
the last decade, more than more than a decade in
bringing incentives. Has there been any tension or any opportunities
to coordinate at all?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Less of the coordination. I mean, we compete, there's no
question about it. And we're in the you know, we
both are sitting in one of the big talent reservoirs
in the world. So it's not surprising each each state
has got its own legacy in terms of talent and entertainment.
We do a lot with New York City, We do
(11:29):
a lot with New York State. They're very good partners
in many respects. Their success is our success. But in
film and television we're largely competing made the best state
within and I think this room enough for both of
us to succeed.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
There's a lot of production out there, for sure. Don't
go anywhere. We'll have more from Governor Phil Murphy of
New Jersey after this break with the rest of our
conversation with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. Where I
sit now, my home state, California is quite Frankly, I
(12:08):
think this state's trying to figure out how they lost
the majority of this business. But that's that's another story.
Let me ask you also, you know, really significantly impactful
is the Fort Monmouth project that you mentioned. There's a
lions Gate project I believe in Newark if I'm not mistaken,
and some other you know, especially Fort Monmouth seems like
a really innovative and you know, really thoughtful way to
(12:31):
take to take an old army facility and bring it
into the future.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah. I think there are largely three parts to if
you're succeeding with something like Netflix or lions Gate or
even a particular movie getting made. The three elements one
is the math has to work for the for the
studio and for the producers. So as nice as we are,
it's rare that our niceness, all of the other good
(12:58):
things about New Jersey will solve a math problem that
is going against the production. So number one is math.
Number two is making it easy and productive to film here.
And that's talent where Union state it's a union industry.
It's having a lot of the soft stuff, wardrobe set
(13:22):
ecosystems beginning to build up in New Jersey. So there's
sort of that part of it. And then thirdly, relationships
we know and aggressively pursue in court the top leadership
at all the big studios. We're on with them constantly.
(13:42):
We know them, they know us. So it's like everything
else in life, there's a relationship. This is a relationship
business like most things. So it's the math, it's our
non math film environment. And then it's the relationships at
the highest levels of the studios.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Any other aspects of entertainment or content or any of
the media companies like Audible, any tangible impacts that you
can see over your eight years and looking out into
the future, tangible impact of entertainment, content creation, media in
general that are paying benefits for New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I mean all frankly, if you've brought an entertainment to
include sports. We have the World Cup Final next year
in New Jersey. That doesn't happen by accident. We have
the World Club Cup Final this year in New Jersey.
We've got post productions sprouting up because we've got now
incentives for post production. We have Worldwide Wrestling coming in
(14:44):
for a couple of days this summer, huge concert slate,
a ton of movies getting made, a ton of television
getting made all over the state. There's evidence none of
this is by accident. This is an absolute, cold blooded,
focused strategy from moment one to become a major player. Again,
(15:05):
I might add in sports and entertainment, and the evidence
is all over the place.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Did you have any key allies, whether it's the state
or in local communities, anybody that you would say that
really helped you, especially early on, convince the state and
residence in the legislature of the need to get aggressive
in this area.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, I think we had good leadership in the legislature.
This stuff doesn't get done without legislative leadership, because you
need bills that I can't get the bill of my
desk I can sign up right against there. So I
give folks on both sides of the aisle, in the leadership,
especially the Senate President and Speaker of the Assembly. We're
a big union state. I mentioned, so iatsees head Matt
(15:47):
Loeb lives in New Jersey. He's become a very close
partner in this. I mentioned the studio heads. I don't
think there's a big studio that we don't have a
direct line into. That's been incredibly important. We've looked to
other states and other models. We wanted to make sure
we got our incentives program right. We've also, as I mentioned,
(16:09):
tweaked it almost I think every year since we've been here,
to make sure that we stay competitive on a global basis,
again consistently. Right now it's London is the big one
that we're competing with. I'd say Georgia as well, and
then other countries come and go. So having a real
(16:30):
sense of the not just the Hollywood piece of this,
but the global piece has been really important. We're going
to the Golf next week to pitch New Jersey. Part
of that will have film elements associated with it. A
lot of capital coming from the Golf interested in film
and television. So there's not one mentor not one model,
(16:51):
not one partner, but as they say, it takes a village,
and that's been our mantra since day one.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Did you know basically how media and inner came and
worked before you came into the governorship. You seem to
have a strong understanding of it.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I used to be an actor,
an amateur actor in high school, in college, so I've
loved performing arts and entertainment, but that didn't necessarily give
me the instincts that I needed to help job start
an industry. And I was a former I was a
banker and covered a lot of big companies, some of entertainment.
(17:26):
And I was a former US ambassador in my case
in Germany, which has a big legacy and history and film,
including a big studio that's right outside of Berlin. Yeah,
so a combination of experiences.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
All right, I have two last questions for you. Both
are hard to answer and both you can probably predict. Okay,
the first one is, Governor Murphy. You're a Democrat. You've
been elected twice now in twenty seventeen, re elected in
twenty twenty one. You're a Democrat. The Democratic Party is,
by any measure, is in a very difficult place. How
(18:03):
have you booked the trend and been able to be
a successful governor, a popular governor, at a time when
the country is riven, even blue bastions are riven with divisiveness.
What do you think are the keys for your party
right now? What should they be doing in this time
of incredible disruption and quite frankly chaos in national politics?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
General comment. After President Trump got elected in November, I
felt like we had three or four months of the
proverbial deer in the headlight, just frozen, couldn't believe it happened, sideways, etc.
That's begun to change, and not necessarily for good reasons.
(18:45):
All the volatility, all the chaos, all the threats, and
things like Social Security, Medicare, seniors, prescription drugs, Medicaid. This
has begun to rouse up the base of our party
again kind of for all the wrong reasons. But it's
reminiscent now of what it felt like to me, at
(19:06):
least in the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen midterm cycle, where
the Democrats did quite well. As you rightfully point out,
I got elected in seventeen, and we had big successes
in the midterm elections in eighteen. It feels like that's
the direction we're headed again, not necessarily for the right reasons.
(19:26):
I'd say two things more specific to me. One is
you've got to meet people where they are, and that's
pretty much always the kitchen table. What are you doing
for affordability? What are we doing for opportunity? Are my
kids going to have a better shape than we had?
Rising healthcare costs, energy costs? What are we doing explicitly
(19:49):
to push back on inflation? That's one the thing that
we've a mantra that we've lived by. The Other is
this is more of a national I was the National
Finance Chair when Howard Dean was the chair and what
really struck me and attracted me to work with Howard
as a volunteer was his fifty state strategy. So I
(20:09):
think the Republican Party does that really well. The plumbing,
the wiring, the non sexy stuff that makes parties go
day in and day out. We're not good at that.
So getting back to those basics, I think we'll do that.
The new chair feels like he's of that school of thought,
(20:29):
But to me, it's the unsexy, quiet, boring stuff that
I think distinguished as political parties.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
We're speaking as the news is breaking that Governor Josh
Shapiro of Pennsylvania that there appears to ben Arson at
the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. Is it scary to be
a public figure right now?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I think it's scary, But it's a sign of the times.
Josh is a great guy. He's a very close friend.
We were back and forth yesterday this news broke. It's
just that it tells you a lot about the tension
out there right now, the fact that somebody would even
think about this. So you want to obviously, you want
(21:11):
to make sure that the folks, the professionals who keep
you safe and secure, are reviewing an incident like this
and making sure that we're we've got a good system
in place to prevent something like that from happening. But boy,
we need to come together sooner than later as a country.
(21:31):
We're Americans first and foremost, and that's getting lost in
the sauce right now by too many folks out there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Okay, we're going to leave on a more hopeful note.
What do you want to do next.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In the immediate term, it's to run through the tape.
We've got nine months to go and we want to
make sure that those nine months are incredibly productive and
that we are that we are sprinting, and that we're
not putting our feet up. So that's the near term commitment.
I don't know beyond next January. I really don't. My
(22:04):
guess is there'll be some amount of public service. We're
spending a lot of time in hand to hand combat
with a lot of things I mentioned in the environment,
the volatility that we probably weren't anticipating would be doing.
That's probably taken up some of the otherwise free time
to think about what's next. But no news to break,
but I promise you when there is, we'll give you
(22:26):
a shout.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Thank you, Governor Murphy, thank you for being a friend
to showbiz, Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening. Be
sure to leave us a review at Apple podcast our
Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go
to Variety dot com and sign up for the free
(22:48):
weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in
next week for another episode of Strictly Business.
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today my
guest is Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. Murphy is
cruising into the last nine months of his second term
(00:27):
as the big boss of the Garden State. By any measure,
he's had a successful run. From day one. Murphy put
huge emphasis on making New Jersey a much bigger player
in TV and film location work. In recent years, he's
focused on bringing brick and mortar studio infrastructure to the state.
(00:48):
Murphy details the arc of this campaign and why he
knew it was crucial for New Jersey. Murphy's a rare
breed these days, a popular Democrat. He talks about the
state of his political party and where he thinks leaders
should put their energy, and we talk about what it's
like to be a public figure these days amid rising
(01:12):
incidence of violence, such as the arson attack this week
on the residence of Murphy's fellow Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
That's all coming up after this break, and we're back
(01:36):
with the conversation with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey.
Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, thank you so much
for joining me here today.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thanks for having me well, I know.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You are coming. You're getting down to about the last
eight nine months of your tenure in the State House.
You've had two very successful terms. From my purchet variety,
I have noticed that you personally and the state has
put so much much attention on entertainment, on content creation,
on sound stages, the nitty gritty work of production. You
(02:08):
have really made a point of making New Jersey a
very friendly place to work for people in the business
of shooting visual and audio content. Let me ask, did
you come into the State House with that in mind?
Was this a goal from the get go.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, we thought we could use incentives much more aggressively,
much more carefully, much more targeted as a general matter,
in one of the arenas that we were specifically focused
on from moment one was film, television and digital with evolved.
Having said that, as you rightfully mentioned, we're in year eight.
(02:47):
If you want, if you roll the tape back to
the beginning, it was literally just putting incentives in place.
My predecessor had pulled the program completely, but we migrated.
We tweaked the incentives. I think almost every year since
we've been in office, and we've gone from being really
happy about stuff getting made in New Jersey and we
(03:07):
still are. We love that, we think we've got a
lot to offer, but we have migrated importantly to building
bricks and mortar soundstages campuses, so that some of the
big companies Netflix at the top of the list, lions Gate,
there's a third big one called eighteen eighty eight, which
is named after the year that film was invented. Those
(03:30):
are multi decade decisions to either buy, lease or both.
So we still love it when folks make stuff in
New Jersey around the state, but we have added to
that a very substantial program to actually get sound stages
and campus is built.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And obviously the infrastructure brings that even more permanent jobs
and the ripple effect. I want to talk to you
about both of those polls of what you talked about,
but let's start with the incentives in terms of what
the state is committed to support every year. Am I
right in thinking that it's about five hundred million a year,
that that's the whole budget for the program.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Of late it has been. But it also depends on
where you are on that cycle, particularly I'm building the
bricks and mortar part of it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
How do you make sure that for every dollar that
goes out you're bringing in at least two dollars or
at least a dollar fifty. What are the hard metrics
that you use to judge the efficacy of the program.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
So the folks who don't like film incentives have a
very narrow definition of return, and their argument is that
it's the state that's the actual dollar that gets returned
to the state, which is not the role of the state.
By the way, I'll take all the dollars we can get,
believe me. But our job is to incent economic activity.
(04:54):
Put sum in the water, for instance, and we're not
looking for two dollars back on a dollar. Ever, is
about seven dollars of economic impact for every dollar that
we put on the street. That's in jobs, it's in
local economies, it's in construction trades. You just go across
the whole range. We measure our economy like any other state.
(05:17):
So the GDP, if you will, that is connected to
the hard dollars we put on the street is about
a sevenfold return. Again, most of it not coming back
to the state. The state gets some revenues, but most
of it going into the real economy. And frankly, that's,
among other things, what government should be doing, and this
is working quite well in that respect.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Can you give me, I'm sure you have a number
of practical, anecdotal examples. Can you give me some success
story examples of local businesses that have reaped the benefits
of this influx of activity.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I mean, no matter whether it's a sound stage
or something being made, economies are the big winners. So
it's the coffee shop, the diner, the dry cleaner. And
we have a pretty cool program called film Ready. We
have communities go basically through a if you will, a
(06:15):
boot camp of what to expect if you've got a
film being made in your town. And I say that
because they these towns, it's almost like a good housekeeping
stamp of approval. These towns get it. They know that
the economic the local economy will benefit enormously, and the
filmmakers love it because they've got an informed counterpart that
(06:38):
understands the responsibilities and the opportunities both. So you see
at all levels of society, all levels of our communities.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Do you have any favorite projects that you were able
to either you know, you or the team were able
to help recruit to New Jersey or or came to
the state because you know, because of the very generous
incentives in place.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, Star with Netflix, a near three hundred acre campus,
a near billion dollar investment by them, which will transform
it's in the old Fort Monmouth. It will transform that
part of New Jersey, which happens to be by the
way where we live. It is absolutely the king of
the hill in terms of what we've been able to
(07:20):
do in terms of making stuff. I could give you
a bunch of examples, but Spielberg is probably the name
the gold standard. He made West Side Story here. He's
back in New Jersey this month making another project. He
loves it here.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Is there any opposition to this in the legislature? Has
it been difficult in the beginning to get to get
people to get behind incentives which, as I know you know,
sometimes to outsiders can seem like you're giving money to
Hollywood to make movies.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
This is I'm knocking on wood here. We've been blessed
by bipartisan support on this overwhelmingly and that's been a
huge key here and hopefully it'll stay that way. I
know it's gotten some controversy in other places. A couple
of years ago, Georgia had a big debate again. That
(08:14):
was that debate between the narrow definition of economic impact,
i e. What goes back into the state coffers versus
the broader economic activity. We've escaped that largely, if not entirely,
escaped that, and I think it will continue to stay
that way. In fact, we extended the program a couple
(08:34):
of years ago to twenty thirty nine, which is just
puts it way out beyond the horizon, if you will,
so that you've taken the political fear or concern out
of this equation entirely. And I'm betting that'll that will
stay that way for the years to come.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's impressive that you started from a standing stop. You
did not that you had to be. And let me
ask you your predecessor, Chris Christie. It's famously it's believed
that he yanked the program, that he pulled the state
support for tax incentives because he was unhappy with the
portrayal of the Garden State on MTV's Jersey Shore. Can
(09:15):
you tell US. Is that true? Was there were there
larger forces going on or was it a fit of peak?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah? I can't. I don't have any insights on it.
In fact, I'm way overdue to ask Chris ifitscrew. That's
the sort of that's the legendary reason that people hang
their hat on it. But it led to things like
you know, Boardwalk Empire about Atlantic City getting made in
New York City, which is crazy, that should have been
(09:42):
made in Jersey. And but listen, we've turned the page.
We're now globally significant. I can't tell you now how
many conversations were in where it's okay, it's coming down
to New Jersey, London or some other country. Some we're
in the world, Hungary and New Zealand, but on the
(10:03):
list of late other countries come and go. We're on
that short list and intend to stay there.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
New Jersey can pass for I'm guessing you know, with
enough set dressing can pass for a lot of different climates.
You do have a lot of different whether it's whether
it's cliffs or you know, shore, you've got a lot
to work with.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
We do in a small the nation's fourth small estate geographically.
So not only do we have the diversity of Look,
I think we've got everything, frankly except the desert. But
you could do it very quickly, very easily. Filmmakers producers
looking at budgets love New Jersey for that reason as well,
because you could move around fairly quickly and at a
(10:44):
fairly low level of expense.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Has there been any Have you had any tension or
have you had any coordination with with you know, that
big state to the to the east of you, New York,
which also has you know, put a real investment in
the last decade, more than more than a decade in
bringing incentives. Has there been any tension or any opportunities
to coordinate at all?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Less of the coordination. I mean, we compete, there's no
question about it. And we're in the you know, we
both are sitting in one of the big talent reservoirs
in the world. So it's not surprising each each state
has got its own legacy in terms of talent and entertainment.
We do a lot with New York City, We do
(11:29):
a lot with New York State. They're very good partners
in many respects. Their success is our success. But in
film and television we're largely competing made the best state
within and I think this room enough for both of
us to succeed.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
There's a lot of production out there, for sure. Don't
go anywhere. We'll have more from Governor Phil Murphy of
New Jersey after this break with the rest of our
conversation with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. Where I
sit now, my home state, California is quite Frankly, I
(12:08):
think this state's trying to figure out how they lost
the majority of this business. But that's that's another story.
Let me ask you also, you know, really significantly impactful
is the Fort Monmouth project that you mentioned. There's a
lions Gate project I believe in Newark if I'm not mistaken,
and some other you know, especially Fort Monmouth seems like
a really innovative and you know, really thoughtful way to
(12:31):
take to take an old army facility and bring it
into the future.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah. I think there are largely three parts to if
you're succeeding with something like Netflix or lions Gate or
even a particular movie getting made. The three elements one
is the math has to work for the for the
studio and for the producers. So as nice as we are,
it's rare that our niceness, all of the other good
(12:58):
things about New Jersey will solve a math problem that
is going against the production. So number one is math.
Number two is making it easy and productive to film here.
And that's talent where Union state it's a union industry.
It's having a lot of the soft stuff, wardrobe set
(13:22):
ecosystems beginning to build up in New Jersey. So there's
sort of that part of it. And then thirdly, relationships
we know and aggressively pursue in court the top leadership
at all the big studios. We're on with them constantly.
(13:42):
We know them, they know us. So it's like everything
else in life, there's a relationship. This is a relationship
business like most things. So it's the math, it's our
non math film environment. And then it's the relationships at
the highest levels of the studios.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Any other aspects of entertainment or content or any of
the media companies like Audible, any tangible impacts that you
can see over your eight years and looking out into
the future, tangible impact of entertainment, content creation, media in
general that are paying benefits for New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I mean all frankly, if you've brought an entertainment to
include sports. We have the World Cup Final next year
in New Jersey. That doesn't happen by accident. We have
the World Club Cup Final this year in New Jersey.
We've got post productions sprouting up because we've got now
incentives for post production. We have Worldwide Wrestling coming in
(14:44):
for a couple of days this summer, huge concert slate,
a ton of movies getting made, a ton of television
getting made all over the state. There's evidence none of
this is by accident. This is an absolute, cold blooded,
focused strategy from moment one to become a major player. Again,
(15:05):
I might add in sports and entertainment, and the evidence
is all over the place.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Did you have any key allies, whether it's the state
or in local communities, anybody that you would say that
really helped you, especially early on, convince the state and
residence in the legislature of the need to get aggressive
in this area.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, I think we had good leadership in the legislature.
This stuff doesn't get done without legislative leadership, because you
need bills that I can't get the bill of my
desk I can sign up right against there. So I
give folks on both sides of the aisle, in the leadership,
especially the Senate President and Speaker of the Assembly. We're
a big union state. I mentioned, so iatsees head Matt
(15:47):
Loeb lives in New Jersey. He's become a very close
partner in this. I mentioned the studio heads. I don't
think there's a big studio that we don't have a
direct line into. That's been incredibly important. We've looked to
other states and other models. We wanted to make sure
we got our incentives program right. We've also, as I mentioned,
(16:09):
tweaked it almost I think every year since we've been here,
to make sure that we stay competitive on a global basis,
again consistently. Right now it's London is the big one
that we're competing with. I'd say Georgia as well, and
then other countries come and go. So having a real
(16:30):
sense of the not just the Hollywood piece of this,
but the global piece has been really important. We're going
to the Golf next week to pitch New Jersey. Part
of that will have film elements associated with it. A
lot of capital coming from the Golf interested in film
and television. So there's not one mentor not one model,
(16:51):
not one partner, but as they say, it takes a village,
and that's been our mantra since day one.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Did you know basically how media and inner came and
worked before you came into the governorship. You seem to
have a strong understanding of it.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I used to be an actor,
an amateur actor in high school, in college, so I've
loved performing arts and entertainment, but that didn't necessarily give
me the instincts that I needed to help job start
an industry. And I was a former I was a
banker and covered a lot of big companies, some of entertainment.
(17:26):
And I was a former US ambassador in my case
in Germany, which has a big legacy and history and film,
including a big studio that's right outside of Berlin. Yeah,
so a combination of experiences.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
All right, I have two last questions for you. Both
are hard to answer and both you can probably predict. Okay,
the first one is, Governor Murphy. You're a Democrat. You've
been elected twice now in twenty seventeen, re elected in
twenty twenty one. You're a Democrat. The Democratic Party is,
by any measure, is in a very difficult place. How
(18:03):
have you booked the trend and been able to be
a successful governor, a popular governor, at a time when
the country is riven, even blue bastions are riven with divisiveness.
What do you think are the keys for your party
right now? What should they be doing in this time
of incredible disruption and quite frankly chaos in national politics?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
General comment. After President Trump got elected in November, I
felt like we had three or four months of the
proverbial deer in the headlight, just frozen, couldn't believe it happened, sideways, etc.
That's begun to change, and not necessarily for good reasons.
(18:45):
All the volatility, all the chaos, all the threats, and
things like Social Security, Medicare, seniors, prescription drugs, Medicaid. This
has begun to rouse up the base of our party
again kind of for all the wrong reasons. But it's
reminiscent now of what it felt like to me, at
(19:06):
least in the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen midterm cycle, where
the Democrats did quite well. As you rightfully point out,
I got elected in seventeen, and we had big successes
in the midterm elections in eighteen. It feels like that's
the direction we're headed again, not necessarily for the right reasons.
(19:26):
I'd say two things more specific to me. One is
you've got to meet people where they are, and that's
pretty much always the kitchen table. What are you doing
for affordability? What are we doing for opportunity? Are my
kids going to have a better shape than we had?
Rising healthcare costs, energy costs? What are we doing explicitly
(19:49):
to push back on inflation? That's one the thing that
we've a mantra that we've lived by. The Other is
this is more of a national I was the National
Finance Chair when Howard Dean was the chair and what
really struck me and attracted me to work with Howard
as a volunteer was his fifty state strategy. So I
(20:09):
think the Republican Party does that really well. The plumbing,
the wiring, the non sexy stuff that makes parties go
day in and day out. We're not good at that.
So getting back to those basics, I think we'll do that.
The new chair feels like he's of that school of thought,
(20:29):
But to me, it's the unsexy, quiet, boring stuff that
I think distinguished as political parties.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
We're speaking as the news is breaking that Governor Josh
Shapiro of Pennsylvania that there appears to ben Arson at
the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. Is it scary to be
a public figure right now?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I think it's scary, But it's a sign of the times.
Josh is a great guy. He's a very close friend.
We were back and forth yesterday this news broke. It's
just that it tells you a lot about the tension
out there right now, the fact that somebody would even
think about this. So you want to obviously, you want
(21:11):
to make sure that the folks, the professionals who keep
you safe and secure, are reviewing an incident like this
and making sure that we're we've got a good system
in place to prevent something like that from happening. But boy,
we need to come together sooner than later as a country.
(21:31):
We're Americans first and foremost, and that's getting lost in
the sauce right now by too many folks out there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Okay, we're going to leave on a more hopeful note.
What do you want to do next.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In the immediate term, it's to run through the tape.
We've got nine months to go and we want to
make sure that those nine months are incredibly productive and
that we are that we are sprinting, and that we're
not putting our feet up. So that's the near term commitment.
I don't know beyond next January. I really don't. My
(22:04):
guess is there'll be some amount of public service. We're
spending a lot of time in hand to hand combat
with a lot of things I mentioned in the environment,
the volatility that we probably weren't anticipating would be doing.
That's probably taken up some of the otherwise free time
to think about what's next. But no news to break,
but I promise you when there is, we'll give you
(22:26):
a shout.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Thank you, Governor Murphy, thank you for being a friend
to showbiz, Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening. Be
sure to leave us a review at Apple podcast our
Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go
to Variety dot com and sign up for the free
(22:48):
weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in
next week for another episode of Strictly Business.
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