If you watched CNN Tuesday night for guidance on how California’s new governor would solve Hollywood’s production crisis, you may as well have changed the channel: The Lakers had more answers than the candidates on the stage. And they got beat by 18.
The third and final gubernatorial debate ahead of the June 2 primary saw the issue — which affects the biggest industry in the state’s most populous city — draw precious little airtime. Moderators asked only two of the seven candidates what they would do about the bleeding of production jobs, and neither gave an especially substantive answer.
“It’s a competition we can and must win,” Katie Porter said generally, without addressing whether she would push for an uncapping of the current $750 million annual production tax credit, as she has yet to do.
“This election is an existential election for Hollywood. So yes, we do need an unlimited, uncapped tax credit. It needs to be above and below the line,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, which he has previously said, and should not just go to “camera operators and makeup people” — but also oddly noted in the same answer that “the jobs behind the camera are more important than the people in front,” Also, he’s polling at 2%.
Left out of the question were Republican Steve Hilton, a frontrunner who told THR last week he would consider a dramatic 60% tax credit; Xavier Becerra, a frontrunner whose views Hollywood professionals are eager to know; and Tom Steyer, polling closely behind the two men and who has also said he would take off the cap but not yet clarified whether it would be limited to below-the-line jobs. Unions tend to favor such an earmark, though proponents of above-the-line inclusions say it would incentivize producers to shoot in the state to begin with.
Instead, amid ostensible discussions about housing and health care, the candidates sniped and bickered — over Porter’s temperament, over whether they knew immigration law, over whether Republican Chad Bianco had ever used the word “swindled” in his life ( he said no, then yes). How to stem a crisis that has cost some 50,000 jobs despite up to $750 million in annual production tax incentives? Less explored.
The debate happened four weeks before the primary election that will determine which two of the pool of seven will advance to the general election. A split of one Republican and one Democrat would almost surely hand the governorship to the Democrat. The advancement of Hilton and Bianco, on the other hand, would ensure California would have its first Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger 16 years ago.
More time was spent on which celebrity candidates would choose to play them in a biopic. Antonio Banderas got two votes (Becerra and Villaraigosa); Clint Eastwood was namechecked (Bianco, Riverside County sheriff); Gregory Peck got an OG shout-out (Steyer, we’re assuming forTo Kill a Mockingbird, notThe Million Pound Note);Tina Fey became unwittingly embroiled (Katie Porter; she can see Catalina from her house?); and Jason Statham was the obvious choice for the driven and clean-headed Brit Hilton.
San Jose mayor Matt Mahan had perhaps the most surprising answer when, after a pause, he replied, “Russell Crowe in theGladiator, how’s that?” We were, to say the least, not entertained.