Two media conglomerates will create a joint venture to build a film studio campus in Southern Nevada, should a bill to massively expand the state’s film tax credit program pass, the companies announced Wednesday.
Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery were previously leading opposing efforts to bring multi-acre studio lots to the Las Vegas area with the help of millions of dollars in annual tax credits in proposed legislation. But a day before one bill receives its first hearing, the companies say they will work together on the legislation that would aid the possible 31-acre studio campus in Summerlin.
Assembly Bill 238 will be presented in the Assembly Revenue Committee at 4 p.m. Thursday. Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, co-sponsor of the bill, said the proposed legislation could result in nearly 18,000 jobs.
“We are the entertainment capital of the world, and there is no better example of that than this partnership between two of the world’s major film and television studios,” Sandra Jauregui, D-Las Vegas, said in a statement.
Her bill calls for $105 million in production film tax credits annually, with $80 million set aside for the proposed Summerlin Studios, on land south of the 215 beltway between South Town Center Drive and South Hualapai Way. The remaining amount would come in the form of non-transferable tax credits available for filming elsewhere in the state. Currently, credits are capped at $10 million per year at a maximum of $6 million per production.
The expanded tax credits would become available July 1, 2028, but would first require a capital investment of at least $400 million. AB 238 also would require an educational and vocational building on the site.
“We are excited to work with Sony Pictures and with Howard Hughes to bring large- and small-scale film and TV productions to Nevada,” Simon Robinson, chief operating officer of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement. “We are approaching this legislative session convinced now more than ever that expanding to Nevada provides us with our ideal third production hub, and we are committed to providing direct benefits to the state, educational programs and institutions, and the next generation of Nevadans looking to work in the thousands of different jobs needed to support a steady stream of productions.”
The announcement is a movie-like twist in the long-running effort to expand Nevada’s film tax credit program and bring a major studio to the Las Vegas area. In 2023, Sen. Roberta Lange, D-Las Vegas, proposed similar legislation – albeit with millions more in available tax credits – with Birtcher Development, Sony, Howard Hughes and an unnamed studio. That bill died without a floor vote, and Lange promised to rework and reintroduce the proposal in the 2025 legislative session.
Since then, Sony found new partners in Jauregui and development company Howard Hughes Corp. Hughes has its site “shovel-ready,” a Sony executive said in Las Vegas in August.
Warner Bros. came into the scene in August as the studio partner for Lange’s then-bill draft resolution for a studio at UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park. They dropped out in January but said they remained committed to the idea.
It’s not immediately clear how this announcement affects Lange’s proposal, Senate Bill 220, if at all. She told the Review-Journal last week her studio partner was The MBS Group, a Manhattan Beach, California-based studio company.
Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.
