Attracting international productions is important to the health of a local screen industry. But an industry built too heavily on servicing somebody else's stories is vulnerable by design.
The debate surrounding the future of film and television production in the United Kingdom has implications well beyond Britain's borders.
With the United States considering further federal tax incentives designed to encourage Hollywood productions to return home, every major international production hub has reason to pay attention. From London to Wellington, territories that have spent decades developing the infrastructure, expertise and workforce to service international productions could find themselves competing for an increasingly uncertain share of the global production market.
This is not simply a British problem. It is an international one. And it raises a more fundamental question: how sustainable are screen industries that depend so heavily on attracting productions originating elsewhere?
Understanding production incentives
The term 'tax giveaway' is frequently used to describe government production incentives, particularly when the beneficiaries are large international studios or production companies. It is an appealing political shorthand, but it doesn't accurately describe how these schemes generally operate.
Production incentives typically take the form of rebates on a percentage of qualifying expenditure incurred within a particular territory. The expenditure that qualifies is carefully defined, and the schemes are designed to encourage productions to spend money locally that might otherwise have been spent elsewhere.
The economic rationale is relatively straightforward. A production brings employment, expenditure on local goods and services, demand for accommodation and transport, opportunities for local businesses, and work for a wide range of specialist suppliers and contractors.
The economic activity generated can extend considerably beyond the initial production expenditure. Numerous studies have examined this multiplier effect, demonstrating how screen production can contribute to wider economic activity.
Of course, that doesn't mean every incentive scheme represents good public policy. The design of a scheme matters enormously. Governments need to consider the additional economic activity being attracted, the proportion of expenditure retained locally and the longer-term benefits to the domestic industry.
But dismissing production incentives as corporate handouts overlooks the economic rationale behind them. For countries competing in an increasingly international production environment, they can be an important instrument of industrial policy.
The vulnerability of the runaway production model
There is, however, a more fundamental problem facing many smaller screen industries. For decades, countries including New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have worked to attract international productions, particularly those originating in the United States.
There are good reasons for doing so. International productions bring substantial investment, create employment, develop technical expertise, support production infrastructure and provide opportunities for local practitioners to work at a scale that might otherwise be unavailable. They can also help retain experienced crews and specialist businesses that might struggle to survive on domestic production activity alone.
But there is a distinction between building an industry that attracts international productions and building one that can generate its own. When the economic health of a screen industry becomes disproportionately dependent on productions originating elsewhere, it becomes vulnerable to decisions over which it has little control. Exchange rates change. Labour costs fluctuate. Industrial regulations evolve. Governments in competing territories introduce new incentives. International studios reassess their production strategies and shift investment accordingly. A location that was commercially attractive yesterday may not be so tomorrow.
The problem isn't that international productions come and go. That's an inherent characteristic of a global industry. The problem is becoming so dependent on their presence that the domestic industry struggles whenever the international market moves elsewhere.
The missing investment: our own storytellers
This brings us to the part of the discussion that I believe deserves considerably more attention. Many territories have invested heavily in the infrastructure and incentives necessary to attract international productions, without making a commensurate investment in the development of their own creative industries.
We need to invest in local writers, directors, producers and the development of original intellectual property. We need to create pathways for emerging filmmakers, support experienced practitioners in developing new work and ensure that locally generated projects have realistic opportunities to reach production and audiences.
This isn't an argument against international productions. Quite the opposite. A healthy domestic production industry and a competitive international production sector should be mutually reinforcing. International productions can sustain infrastructure, develop skills, provide employment and create opportunities for local practitioners. A strong domestic industry can provide continuity, generate original work, develop local talent and create productions that have a life beyond the incentives and exchange rates that initially made a territory attractive. The two should be complementary components of a coherent screen industry strategy. Yet too often, the conversation about screen industry development becomes dominated by the question of how to attract the next major international production, rather than how to ensure that local filmmakers have the resources and opportunities to tell their own stories.
A particular challenge for New Zealand
For a country such as New Zealand, this distinction is especially important. We have developed an international reputation for our production capabilities, technical expertise, locations and creative talent. Our screen industry has demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to deliver productions at an international level. But we should be equally ambitious about developing our own stories and building the domestic production base necessary to sustain them.
New Zealand cannot realistically compete with the United States on the scale of its domestic market or the financial resources of its major studios. Nor should we attempt to replicate the production economies of much larger territories. Our competitive advantage must also come from the distinctiveness of our creative voices, the quality of our storytelling and our ability to generate original work that can find audiences both at home and internationally. That requires sustained investment in development, production and the people who create the work. It also requires a recognition that developing a screen industry is about more than attracting expenditure. It is about building the capacity to generate cultural and economic value ourselves.
Beyond the incentives
Production incentives matter. They can help sustain employment, attract investment and maintain the infrastructure on which a successful screen industry depends. But they are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. The long-term objective should be an industry capable of attracting international productions while also generating a continuous pipeline of original domestic work. An industry that can weather changes in international production economics because it has a strong creative foundation of its own.
Ultimately, a country that doesn't invest in its own storytellers risks becoming a service provider for everybody else's stories. And that is a much bigger problem than losing the next Hollywood production.
Gabriel Reid
4 November 2026