Florida Film and TV Production — Florida

Florida has operated as a film and television production destination since the silent-film era, drawing on year-round sunshine, coastal variety, subtropical wilderness, and urban streetscapes that no single competing state fully replicates. The Florida Office of Film & Entertainment, a unit of FloridaCommerce, identifies the state as home to the third-largest production talent pool in the United States. Production activity is concentrated in two clusters: South Florida — principally Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — and Central Florida, centered on Orlando.

The industry's modern arc follows three distinct periods. An early boom between 1908 and 1922 made Jacksonville the national center of winter film production. A second surge from 2010 to 2016 was anchored by a state incentive program with a statutory cap of $296 million, which drew major network and streaming series to South Florida. When the Legislature allowed that program to expire after FY 2015–16, major productions migrated toward Georgia and Louisiana, and Florida became the only Southeastern state without a statewide film incentive, a status documented by Florida Politics as recently as 2025. County-level programs, organic location demand, and a growing network of local film commissions have partially absorbed the void left by the lapsed state program.

The roots of Florida's film industry reach back to 1908, when Kalem Studios established what SGR Law documents as the first permanent film studio in the state, in Jacksonville. Northeastern production companies sought Florida's winters specifically because outdoor filming was impossible in New York and New Jersey for months at a time. Within a decade, more than 30 companies were operating in Jacksonville, and the Florida Humanities Council documents that between 1908 and 1922 the city was known as the Winter Film Capital of the World.

The physical remnant of that era is Norman Studios, the only surviving silent-era studio structure in Florida. Norman Studios was notable for producing race films — features with all-Black casts in positive leading roles — during a period when mainstream Hollywood excluded Black performers from such portrayals. The studio's only surviving feature, The Flying Ace, has been preserved and restored, per the Florida Humanities Council. The structure now operates as the Norman Studios Silent Film Museum in Jacksonville.

After the major studios consolidated in California by the early 1920s, Florida remained a secondary market for decades. Miami's urban character and the explosion of Orlando's theme-park economy in the 1980s and 1990s drew major studios back, setting the stage for the state's modern production infrastructure. Barry Jenkins, who grew up in Liberty City, Miami and attended Florida State University's film program, directed Moonlight — which won the Academy Award for Best Picture — shot entirely in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood, according to Britannica.

Florida's modern competitive incentive program originated with the 2010 Jobs for Florida bill, which authorized $242 million in entertainment industry tax credits over five years, according to Film Florida. The Legislature raised the cap to $254 million in 2011 and added $42 million more in 2012, bringing the total statutory ceiling to $296 million, as documented in the Florida Economic Demographic Research (EDR) 2021 return-on-investment report. Credits covered up to 30 percent of qualified expenditures and could be applied against sales-and-use tax or corporate income tax.

The program's immediate take-up was substantial: by March 2011, $227 million of the original allocation had been committed, per Film Florida. High-profile television productions that filmed in Florida during the incentive era include USA Network's Burn Notice, HBO's Ballers, Netflix's Bloodline, Magic City, and The Glades. The two Dolphin Tale films, shot at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, generated a documented attendance spike at that facility. Florida Politics reports that the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau estimated the combined audience reach of productions during this period exceeded 1.5 billion viewers, an exposure value the bureau equated to $405 million in advertising.

Despite that economic visibility, the EDR's successive return-on-investment analyses showed declining fiscal returns. The Florida Phoenix documents the trajectory: the original EDR analysis found a return of 46 cents per state dollar invested; a 2015 update found 25 cents; the 2021 evaluation found 18 cents. The Legislature did not renew the program after FY 2015–16, and tax credit recipients under the full program had collectively spent $1.2 billion in Florida, per Florida Politics.

After the statewide program lapsed, the Florida Office of Film & Entertainment continued operating through its Film In Florida portal, offering location scouting support, permitting assistance for state-owned roads, parks, and buildings, and a point-of-sale sales tax exemption for qualified productions. The office also coordinates a network of more than 60 local film commissions across the state, with more than a dozen of those commissions administering independent local incentive programs, per FloridaCommerce.

The most substantial county-level response came from Miami-Dade, which in May 2024 formally launched the High Impact Film Fund Program (HIFFP), committing up to $50 million over five years through a 20 percent cash rebate on qualifying domestic and international productions. The program was sponsored by Commissioner René García and received unanimous approval from the County Board of County Commissioners, per the county's official press release.

Broward County's Film Lauderdale program, administered separately, operates seven distinct incentive tracks, according to Film Florida's published incentive listings. These include a Partial Project Program offering a 20 percent rebate capped at $500,000, a TV Commercial Attraction incentive at 15 percent capped at $175,000, and an Emerging Filmmakers Grant of $10,000. Orange County offers its own TV and Film Incentive — a 20 percent rebate capped at $1 million per project — contingent on a minimum $400,000 direct spend within the county, per the county's official economic development office. Reporting by WLRN documents that this county-by-county patchwork, while meaningful in South Florida and Orlando, leaves rural counties and the Panhandle with little comparable infrastructure for attracting major productions.

South Florida accounts for the largest share of major scripted production activity, drawn by Miami-Dade's urban streetscapes, Broward's waterfront locations, and the region's concentration of experienced crew. Palm Beach County has emerged as a particularly active production corridor: the Palm Beach County Film & Television Commission reported $260 million in production spend in 2025, a 3 percent increase over the prior-year record of $253 million and the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking activity. Productions filmed in the county have included an ABC drama set in West Palm Beach.

Central Florida's production base centers on Orlando, where Universal Studios Florida's purpose-built soundstages have hosted thousands of feature films, television programs, and commercials since the facility opened. The infrastructure Orlando offers — studio space, controlled environments, and an established theme-park tourism economy — makes it distinct from South Florida's largely location-based production model.

The Florida Panhandle and rural North Florida host smaller-scale activity, primarily commercials and independent productions. Jacksonville, despite its pioneering silent-era history, functions today primarily as a commercial and industrial film market rather than a hub for major scripted television or feature production. The Florida Office of Film & Entertainment documents that more than 60 local film commissions operate statewide, providing baseline support across regions, though the commissions vary considerably in budget, staffing, and incentive capacity.

In 2024, Apple TV+'s Bad Monkey — starring Vince Vaughn and based on a Carl Hiaasen novel set in South Florida — was shot almost entirely in the region, representing one of the highest-profile scripted productions to film primarily in Florida in the post-incentive period, according to reporting by WLRN and WUSF. In the same year, the romantic comedy Fly Me to the Moon, directed by Greg Berlanti and starring Scarlett Johansson, used Kennedy Space Center as a primary filming location, per WLRN.

On the policy front, the 2025 legislative session produced the first new statutory mechanism related to film industry support since the incentive program expired. Representative Fabián Basabe's HB 1135 — which proposed a Florida Film Legacy specialty license plate, with proceeds directed to Feature Florida Partnerships, a nonprofit supporting local filmmakers — was incorporated into the House specialty plate package (HB 639) through the Ways and Means Committee, according to Florida Politics. The plate was ultimately authorized through SB 246, signed into law by Governor DeSantis, per NBC 6 South Florida. Florida remained, as of early 2025, the only Southeastern state without a statewide cash-rebate or tax-credit film incentive program, a distinction noted by Florida Politics.

Florida's film and television industry intersects with several other state-level systems. The use of Kennedy Space Center as a production location for Fly Me to the Moon in 2024 illustrates the industry's connection to Florida's aerospace identity. Productions like Netflix's Bloodline, set in the Florida Keys, and Bad Monkey, set across South Florida's coastal and wetland landscapes, embed the state's natural geography directly into narrative content, reinforcing identities that tourism agencies deploy as earned-media equivalents. The two Dolphin Tale films demonstrate how a single production shot at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium can translate into measurable attendance gains at a conservation facility.

The silent-film history of Jacksonville — and in particular Norman Studios' race films — connects the industry to African American cultural heritage in Florida, a dimension the Florida Humanities Council documents as distinct from mainstream Hollywood production of the same era.

Florida's successive EDR return-on-investment analyses, which showed the entertainment incentive program's fiscal return declining from 46 cents per state dollar to 18 cents over roughly a decade, represent a documented case study in how legislatures weigh economic development subsidies against direct fiscal cost. The Legislature's decision not to renew the program after FY 2015–16, and the resulting shift of production activity toward Georgia and Louisiana, has made Florida an active subject of ongoing state-versus-local governance debate: decisions about production attraction that were once made at the state level are now made — with varying resources and reach — by individual county boards and commissions. Workforce development ties the industry to education policy through programs such as Florida State University's film program and county-level initiatives such as the Palm Beach County Student Showcase of Films.