The Land of Enchantment may be an ideal case study for the production spending boom that fueled the Peak TV and Streaming Wars eras in Hollywood — as well as the dramatic pull back that occurred after the dual actors’ and writers’ strikes hit the industry in 2023.
New Mexico, the home of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, saw growth in studio spending during the prestige cable years and stocked up on its share of series (including multiple seasons of blockbuster Stranger Things) after Netflix picked Albuquerque for a major production hub in 2018. During the early pandemic years, as Netflix’s rivals tried (and failed) to emulate its playbook to compete in a scale game for subscribers, the state also was a beneficiary.
Vince Gilligan brought his Apple TV series Pluribus to New Mexico and AMC has now wrapped filming on five seasons of its detective drama Dark Winds, while Christopher Nolan shot his Oscar best picture winner Oppenheimer on-location in Los Alamos. More recently, Netflix’s Western romance Ransom Canyon has used the state as a backdrop for Texas Hill Country over the course of multiple seasons.
But since the strikes, studios have generally cut back on big-ticket productions, especially in the scripted TV space, across the board. That retrenchment hit lots of markets, including California, but New Mexico saw a particularly notable drop in production spending. For the past two years, producer Steve Graham (Walker: Independence, Black Summer) has led the New Mexico Film Office, working with studio partners to manage this transition to a new normal. That also includes attracting more commercial and post-production work as well as microdramas going forward. Graham spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the major trendlines, as “we’re in the middle of a change in the way the industry is working.”
“Every studio has reached out and many of them have scouted in the summer for projects that could be fall or spring,” Graham adds. “So I’m very encouraged at what’s coming up.”
New Mexico saw multiple boom periods where film and TV production spend grew considerably in classic Peak TV years and then also during the Streaming Wars era up until 2022. What were factors fueling those growth times?
Our peak years were in 2019 and 2022, I believe, on either side of the pandemic. And we enjoyed a lot of growth during peak TV, as did a lot of other places domestically. I think the advantage we had during that period is we had a good running start, as our incentive had brought quite a bit of production to New Mexico. So we were just in a great spot to be able to grow and to add to our infrastructure, which meant that as we increasingly saw competition from other states, we already had the crew, we already had production facilities and things like that. So I think it was that combination.
It was the sort of natural growth of production in those years during — I don’t know if you want to call them Streaming Wars — but the competition between various streaming services to really draw in the customers and define themselves by quality, and sometimes quantity, I think that helped the entire industry, so we were right there ready for it.
Then the major studios started pulling back on spending, cutting episode counts and greenlighting fewer overall series.
Yep. One of the things that we found in our data was that there were fewer of these — people talk about tentpole features, but there’s also tentpole series that are hundreds of millions of dollars and go for years and years. And there are fewer of those than there used to be. So our average budget per production has gone down, but our number of productions recently has gone up, so we’re seeing a lot more modestly budgeted independent features, and even some independent television. I think we’re in the middle of a change in the way the industry is working.
As you alluded to, production spend in New Mexico fell from $874 million at its peak in 2022 to $327 million the past year. You mentioned production activity is growing despite the decline in spend from tentpoles. Could you speak to more of that?
I think what that means for us is that we’re attracting a lot of those mid-tier features. Mid-tier used to be $40 million, right? $20 million to $40 million, and now they’re $10 million to $20 million. But we’re getting a lot more of those size features that have recognizable stars, a great cast, a great story, they’re shooting in these amazing locations in New Mexico, but we’re seeing more of them with smaller numbers, so it’s been good for us.
People are getting back to work. It’s half of the people working that were working two years ago, so we’re all still in a change phase, I think I would call it, but we’re finding our footing.
The global incentives race has also gotten even more competitive in the past several years. California, for instance, more than doubled its annual tax credit program from $330 million to $750 million in 2025. The effects of that are only starting to be seen this year. How do you think about the pros and cons of the incentives race?
Domestically, New Mexico is very, very competitive and in fact, internationally, we are as well, but internationally we’re up against an exchange rate and higher incentives and lower healthcare costs, lower labor costs, in some cases. So that’s a little bigger lift, a little more competition, internationally.
I do feel like the tide is turning a bit on that. We’re seeing more productions come back domestically for various reasons. Budget is certainly one of them, but also creators and cast want to work closer to home. I think it makes a difference, and we’re very competitive with that, and we’ve done very well with productions that have been wanting to shoot domestically but wanted to stay close to Los Angeles, for instance. We’re an hour and a half plane ride and very close and a great place to live and to make movies, so we compete very well there, not just on the incentive side of it.
In its report, the state’s film office said 92% of film and TV shoots in New Mexico wouldn’t be happening without the incentive.
I would stand by that. I think that’s based on data, but yeah, I mean it’s the truth of production in 2026 is that almost — well, I’ll just say there’s tremendous pressure for productions to shoot in places with incentives. And our incentives are not only ranked right up there in terms of the money you get back, but also the ease of use and the speed with which you get your incentive back and just the less friction working in New Mexico we have.
Permits are either free or they’re cheap. They’re easy to get, quick turnaround. There’s lots of parking, traffic is not a problem. And so a lot of those things that hang you up in other jurisdictions are not a problem in New Mexico. It’s refreshing to speak with a filmmaker and they’re like, “oh, I got two more pages done today than I would have gotten done elsewhere because we just we’re ginning right along.”
New Jersey, a state that has seen big production spend growth of late, has lined up three studio partners — Netflix, Lionsgate and Paramount — that have made long-term commitments in the state. New Mexico has granted that distinction to Netflix and NBCUniversal for their bases in Albuquerque. What have you heard from studio partners about their production outlook in the state?
They’re both committed to shooting more in the state. Netflix has had productions here since we went into partnership with them. It’s slower now than it has been, but they’ve been scouting for a number of projects and they just recently shot two series here. NBC is looking at a series later this year and they’re committed to doing more features here as well.
In New Mexico’s annual report, one of the challenges mentioned is that “the state faces a shortage of qualified film and television production workforce.” What are the factors that play into that and is that something you’re focused on?
Some of that language is a holdover, I’ve been in this job about two years. I’d say during the most recent peak in 2022, we were probably running, I don’t know, 10 or 11 crews deep. I would suspect that we’ve atrophied a bit because of the amount of production that has gone away, but that’s a tremendous number of people that are experienced and ready to work and world-class. They’re working on Oppenheimer and Pluribus and Dark Winds and Stranger Things, and these films that are technically very challenging and the craft is top of the heap. So that part of it has been a strength of ours for 20 years, and so one of the things that we’ve done, that we’ve had in place for a number of years, is workforce training programs. So we have something called the Film Crew Advancement Program, or FCAP, and what that is, is a program that will pay for half the salary of a worker who is moving up in a position.
One of the film office’s initiatives is to encourage more filming and production outside Albuquerque and Santa Fe in so-called “Uplift Zones” where projects shooting in more rural areas can qualify for additional incentives from the state. How is that effort going?
Very well. We had a record-setting spend outside of Albuquerque and Santa Fe last year. I think it was $58.5 million. It’s sometimes called the rural incentive, but it’s a lot of that work took place, in and around Las Cruces, which is our second-largest city in New Mexico. There’s a 60-mile zone around the two major production hubs in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and anything out of that 60-mile zone qualifies for an additional 10 percent. We had the same challenge that we had statewide initially, which was building crew and building infrastructure. And when I say infrastructure, I mean stages and rental houses and gripping electric gear and trailers and caterers and restaurants that can support that and places to stay.
One theme that the state has emphasized is how shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, as well as newer series like Dark Winds and features like Oppenheimer have driven “screen tourism” that New Mexico would like to capitalize on more.
We love that part of it. A study was done and, it’s an old study, but it was hundreds of millions of dollars came in as a result of Breaking Bad. And people still come and throw pizzas on Walt’s old house. But yeah, Oppenheimer increased tourism in Los Alamos and the places that Stranger Things shot last year have already seen an uptick in people coming by. As far back as like Red Dawn, we have tourists that want to see where that was shot.
So, it’s a big component. New Mexico is a great tourist state anyway, we have gorgeous vistas and great places to stay and spas and things to do, and so, adding that as part of your visit is an add-on, but it also drives tourist dollars and lets people see how gorgeous the state is and how nice it is to be here.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
