Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today my
Speaker 1: guest is Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. Murphy is
Speaker 1: cruising into the last nine months of his second term
Speaker 1: as the big boss of the Garden State. By any measure,
Speaker 1: he's had a successful run. From day one. Murphy put
Speaker 1: huge emphasis on making New Jersey a much bigger player
Speaker 1: in TV and film location work. In recent years, he's
Speaker 1: focused on bringing brick and mortar studio infrastructure to the state.
Speaker 1: Murphy details the arc of this campaign and why he
Speaker 1: knew it was crucial for New Jersey. Murphy's a rare
Speaker 1: breed these days, a popular Democrat. He talks about the
Speaker 1: state of his political party and where he thinks leaders
Speaker 1: should put their energy, and we talk about what it's
Speaker 1: like to be a public figure these days amid rising
Speaker 1: incidence of violence, such as the arson attack this week
Speaker 1: on the residence of Murphy's fellow Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: That's all coming up after this break, and we're back
Speaker 1: with the conversation with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me here today.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me well, I know.
Speaker 1: You are coming. You're getting down to about the last
Speaker 1: eight nine months of your tenure in the State House.
Speaker 1: You've had two very successful terms. From my purchet variety,
Speaker 1: I have noticed that you personally and the state has
Speaker 1: put so much much attention on entertainment, on content creation,
Speaker 1: on sound stages, the nitty gritty work of production. You
Speaker 1: have really made a point of making New Jersey a
Speaker 1: very friendly place to work for people in the business
Speaker 1: of shooting visual and audio content. Let me ask, did
Speaker 1: you come into the State House with that in mind?
Speaker 1: Was this a goal from the get go.
Speaker 2: Yes, we thought we could use incentives much more aggressively,
Speaker 2: much more carefully, much more targeted as a general matter,
Speaker 2: in one of the arenas that we were specifically focused
Speaker 2: on from moment one was film, television and digital with evolved.
Speaker 2: Having said that, as you rightfully mentioned, we're in year eight.
Speaker 2: If you want, if you roll the tape back to
Speaker 2: the beginning, it was literally just putting incentives in place.
Speaker 2: My predecessor had pulled the program completely, but we migrated.
Speaker 2: We tweaked the incentives. I think almost every year since
Speaker 2: we've been in office, and we've gone from being really
Speaker 2: happy about stuff getting made in New Jersey and we
Speaker 2: still are. We love that, we think we've got a
Speaker 2: lot to offer, but we have migrated importantly to building
Speaker 2: bricks and mortar soundstages campuses, so that some of the
Speaker 2: big companies Netflix at the top of the list, lions Gate,
Speaker 2: there's a third big one called eighteen eighty eight, which
Speaker 2: is named after the year that film was invented. Those
Speaker 2: are multi decade decisions to either buy, lease or both.
Speaker 2: So we still love it when folks make stuff in
Speaker 2: New Jersey around the state, but we have added to
Speaker 2: that a very substantial program to actually get sound stages
Speaker 2: and campus is built.
Speaker 1: And obviously the infrastructure brings that even more permanent jobs
Speaker 1: and the ripple effect. I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about both of those polls of what you talked about,
Speaker 1: but let's start with the incentives in terms of what
Speaker 1: the state is committed to support every year. Am I
Speaker 1: right in thinking that it's about five hundred million a year,
Speaker 1: that that's the whole budget for the program.
Speaker 2: Of late it has been. But it also depends on
Speaker 2: where you are on that cycle, particularly I'm building the
Speaker 2: bricks and mortar part of it.
Speaker 1: How do you make sure that for every dollar that
Speaker 1: goes out you're bringing in at least two dollars or
Speaker 1: at least a dollar fifty. What are the hard metrics
Speaker 1: that you use to judge the efficacy of the program.
Speaker 2: So the folks who don't like film incentives have a
Speaker 2: very narrow definition of return, and their argument is that
Speaker 2: it's the state that's the actual dollar that gets returned
Speaker 2: to the state, which is not the role of the state.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'll take all the dollars we can get,
Speaker 2: believe me. But our job is to incent economic activity.
Speaker 2: Put sum in the water, for instance, and we're not
Speaker 2: looking for two dollars back on a dollar. Ever, is
Speaker 2: about seven dollars of economic impact for every dollar that
Speaker 2: we put on the street. That's in jobs, it's in
Speaker 2: local economies, it's in construction trades. You just go across
Speaker 2: the whole range. We measure our economy like any other state.
Speaker 2: So the GDP, if you will, that is connected to
Speaker 2: the hard dollars we put on the street is about
Speaker 2: a sevenfold return. Again, most of it not coming back
Speaker 2: to the state. The state gets some revenues, but most
Speaker 2: of it going into the real economy. And frankly, that's,
Speaker 2: among other things, what government should be doing, and this
Speaker 2: is working quite well in that respect.
Speaker 1: Can you give me, I'm sure you have a number
Speaker 1: of practical, anecdotal examples. Can you give me some success
Speaker 1: story examples of local businesses that have reaped the benefits
Speaker 1: of this influx of activity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, no matter whether it's a sound stage
Speaker 2: or something being made, economies are the big winners. So
Speaker 2: it's the coffee shop, the diner, the dry cleaner. And
Speaker 2: we have a pretty cool program called film Ready. We
Speaker 2: have communities go basically through a if you will, a
Speaker 2: boot camp of what to expect if you've got a
Speaker 2: film being made in your town. And I say that
Speaker 2: because they these towns, it's almost like a good housekeeping
Speaker 2: stamp of approval. These towns get it. They know that
Speaker 2: the economic the local economy will benefit enormously, and the
Speaker 2: filmmakers love it because they've got an informed counterpart that
Speaker 2: understands the responsibilities and the opportunities both. So you see
Speaker 2: at all levels of society, all levels of our communities.
Speaker 1: Do you have any favorite projects that you were able
Speaker 1: to either you know, you or the team were able
Speaker 1: to help recruit to New Jersey or or came to
Speaker 1: the state because you know, because of the very generous
Speaker 1: incentives in place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Star with Netflix, a near three hundred acre campus,
Speaker 2: a near billion dollar investment by them, which will transform
Speaker 2: it's in the old Fort Monmouth. It will transform that
Speaker 2: part of New Jersey, which happens to be by the
Speaker 2: way where we live. It is absolutely the king of
Speaker 2: the hill in terms of what we've been able to
Speaker 2: do in terms of making stuff. I could give you
Speaker 2: a bunch of examples, but Spielberg is probably the name
Speaker 2: the gold standard. He made West Side Story here. He's
Speaker 2: back in New Jersey this month making another project. He
Speaker 2: loves it here.
Speaker 1: Is there any opposition to this in the legislature? Has
Speaker 1: it been difficult in the beginning to get to get
Speaker 1: people to get behind incentives which, as I know you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes to outsiders can seem like you're giving money to
Speaker 1: Hollywood to make movies.
Speaker 2: This is I'm knocking on wood here. We've been blessed
Speaker 2: by bipartisan support on this overwhelmingly and that's been a
Speaker 2: huge key here and hopefully it'll stay that way. I
Speaker 2: know it's gotten some controversy in other places. A couple
Speaker 2: of years ago, Georgia had a big debate again. That
Speaker 2: was that debate between the narrow definition of economic impact,
Speaker 2: i e. What goes back into the state coffers versus
Speaker 2: the broader economic activity. We've escaped that largely, if not entirely,
Speaker 2: escaped that, and I think it will continue to stay
Speaker 2: that way. In fact, we extended the program a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago to twenty thirty nine, which is just
Speaker 2: puts it way out beyond the horizon, if you will,
Speaker 2: so that you've taken the political fear or concern out
Speaker 2: of this equation entirely. And I'm betting that'll that will
Speaker 2: stay that way for the years to come.
Speaker 1: It's impressive that you started from a standing stop. You
Speaker 1: did not that you had to be. And let me
Speaker 1: ask you your predecessor, Chris Christie. It's famously it's believed
Speaker 1: that he yanked the program, that he pulled the state
Speaker 1: support for tax incentives because he was unhappy with the
Speaker 1: portrayal of the Garden State on MTV's Jersey Shore. Can
Speaker 1: you tell US. Is that true? Was there were there
Speaker 1: larger forces going on or was it a fit of peak?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I can't. I don't have any insights on it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I'm way overdue to ask Chris ifitscrew. That's
Speaker 2: the sort of that's the legendary reason that people hang
Speaker 2: their hat on it. But it led to things like
Speaker 2: you know, Boardwalk Empire about Atlantic City getting made in
Speaker 2: New York City, which is crazy, that should have been
Speaker 2: made in Jersey. And but listen, we've turned the page.
Speaker 2: We're now globally significant. I can't tell you now how
Speaker 2: many conversations were in where it's okay, it's coming down
Speaker 2: to New Jersey, London or some other country. Some we're
Speaker 2: in the world, Hungary and New Zealand, but on the
Speaker 2: list of late other countries come and go. We're on
Speaker 2: that short list and intend to stay there.
Speaker 1: New Jersey can pass for I'm guessing you know, with
Speaker 1: enough set dressing can pass for a lot of different climates.
Speaker 1: You do have a lot of different whether it's whether
Speaker 1: it's cliffs or you know, shore, you've got a lot
Speaker 1: to work with.
Speaker 2: We do in a small the nation's fourth small estate geographically.
Speaker 2: So not only do we have the diversity of Look,
Speaker 2: I think we've got everything, frankly except the desert. But
Speaker 2: you could do it very quickly, very easily. Filmmakers producers
Speaker 2: looking at budgets love New Jersey for that reason as well,
Speaker 2: because you could move around fairly quickly and at a
Speaker 2: fairly low level of expense.
Speaker 1: Has there been any Have you had any tension or
Speaker 1: have you had any coordination with with you know, that
Speaker 1: big state to the to the east of you, New York,
Speaker 1: which also has you know, put a real investment in
Speaker 1: the last decade, more than more than a decade in
Speaker 1: bringing incentives. Has there been any tension or any opportunities
Speaker 1: to coordinate at all?
Speaker 2: Less of the coordination. I mean, we compete, there's no
Speaker 2: question about it. And we're in the you know, we
Speaker 2: both are sitting in one of the big talent reservoirs
Speaker 2: in the world. So it's not surprising each each state
Speaker 2: has got its own legacy in terms of talent and entertainment.
Speaker 2: We do a lot with New York City, We do
Speaker 2: a lot with New York State. They're very good partners
Speaker 2: in many respects. Their success is our success. But in
Speaker 2: film and television we're largely competing made the best state
Speaker 2: within and I think this room enough for both of
Speaker 2: us to succeed.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of production out there, for sure. Don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. We'll have more from Governor Phil Murphy of
Speaker 1: New Jersey after this break with the rest of our
Speaker 1: conversation with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. Where I
Speaker 1: sit now, my home state, California is quite Frankly, I
Speaker 1: think this state's trying to figure out how they lost
Speaker 1: the majority of this business. But that's that's another story.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you also, you know, really significantly impactful
Speaker 1: is the Fort Monmouth project that you mentioned. There's a
Speaker 1: lions Gate project I believe in Newark if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: and some other you know, especially Fort Monmouth seems like
Speaker 1: a really innovative and you know, really thoughtful way to
Speaker 1: take to take an old army facility and bring it
Speaker 1: into the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there are largely three parts to if
Speaker 2: you're succeeding with something like Netflix or lions Gate or
Speaker 2: even a particular movie getting made. The three elements one
Speaker 2: is the math has to work for the for the
Speaker 2: studio and for the producers. So as nice as we are,
Speaker 2: it's rare that our niceness, all of the other good
Speaker 2: things about New Jersey will solve a math problem that
Speaker 2: is going against the production. So number one is math.
Speaker 2: Number two is making it easy and productive to film here.
Speaker 2: And that's talent where Union state it's a union industry.
Speaker 2: It's having a lot of the soft stuff, wardrobe set
Speaker 2: ecosystems beginning to build up in New Jersey. So there's
Speaker 2: sort of that part of it. And then thirdly, relationships
Speaker 2: we know and aggressively pursue in court the top leadership
Speaker 2: at all the big studios. We're on with them constantly.
Speaker 2: We know them, they know us. So it's like everything
Speaker 2: else in life, there's a relationship. This is a relationship
Speaker 2: business like most things. So it's the math, it's our
Speaker 2: non math film environment. And then it's the relationships at
Speaker 2: the highest levels of the studios.
Speaker 1: Any other aspects of entertainment or content or any of
Speaker 1: the media companies like Audible, any tangible impacts that you
Speaker 1: can see over your eight years and looking out into
Speaker 1: the future, tangible impact of entertainment, content creation, media in
Speaker 1: general that are paying benefits for New Jersey.
Speaker 2: I mean all frankly, if you've brought an entertainment to
Speaker 2: include sports. We have the World Cup Final next year
Speaker 2: in New Jersey. That doesn't happen by accident. We have
Speaker 2: the World Club Cup Final this year in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: We've got post productions sprouting up because we've got now
Speaker 2: incentives for post production. We have Worldwide Wrestling coming in
Speaker 2: for a couple of days this summer, huge concert slate,
Speaker 2: a ton of movies getting made, a ton of television
Speaker 2: getting made all over the state. There's evidence none of
Speaker 2: this is by accident. This is an absolute, cold blooded,
Speaker 2: focused strategy from moment one to become a major player. Again,
Speaker 2: I might add in sports and entertainment, and the evidence
Speaker 2: is all over the place.
Speaker 1: Did you have any key allies, whether it's the state
Speaker 1: or in local communities, anybody that you would say that
Speaker 1: really helped you, especially early on, convince the state and
Speaker 1: residence in the legislature of the need to get aggressive
Speaker 1: in this area.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we had good leadership in the legislature.
Speaker 2: This stuff doesn't get done without legislative leadership, because you
Speaker 2: need bills that I can't get the bill of my
Speaker 2: desk I can sign up right against there. So I
Speaker 2: give folks on both sides of the aisle, in the leadership,
Speaker 2: especially the Senate President and Speaker of the Assembly. We're
Speaker 2: a big union state. I mentioned, so iatsees head Matt
Speaker 2: Loeb lives in New Jersey. He's become a very close
Speaker 2: partner in this. I mentioned the studio heads. I don't
Speaker 2: think there's a big studio that we don't have a
Speaker 2: direct line into. That's been incredibly important. We've looked to
Speaker 2: other states and other models. We wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: we got our incentives program right. We've also, as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: tweaked it almost I think every year since we've been here,
Speaker 2: to make sure that we stay competitive on a global basis,
Speaker 2: again consistently. Right now it's London is the big one
Speaker 2: that we're competing with. I'd say Georgia as well, and
Speaker 2: then other countries come and go. So having a real
Speaker 2: sense of the not just the Hollywood piece of this,
Speaker 2: but the global piece has been really important. We're going
Speaker 2: to the Golf next week to pitch New Jersey. Part
Speaker 2: of that will have film elements associated with it. A
Speaker 2: lot of capital coming from the Golf interested in film
Speaker 2: and television. So there's not one mentor not one model,
Speaker 2: not one partner, but as they say, it takes a village,
Speaker 2: and that's been our mantra since day one.
Speaker 1: Did you know basically how media and inner came and
Speaker 1: worked before you came into the governorship. You seem to
Speaker 1: have a strong understanding of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure. I used to be an actor,
Speaker 2: an amateur actor in high school, in college, so I've
Speaker 2: loved performing arts and entertainment, but that didn't necessarily give
Speaker 2: me the instincts that I needed to help job start
Speaker 2: an industry. And I was a former I was a
Speaker 2: banker and covered a lot of big companies, some of entertainment.
Speaker 2: And I was a former US ambassador in my case
Speaker 2: in Germany, which has a big legacy and history and film,
Speaker 2: including a big studio that's right outside of Berlin. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so a combination of experiences.
Speaker 1: All right, I have two last questions for you. Both
Speaker 1: are hard to answer and both you can probably predict. Okay,
Speaker 1: the first one is, Governor Murphy. You're a Democrat. You've
Speaker 1: been elected twice now in twenty seventeen, re elected in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. You're a Democrat. The Democratic Party is,
Speaker 1: by any measure, is in a very difficult place. How
Speaker 1: have you booked the trend and been able to be
Speaker 1: a successful governor, a popular governor, at a time when
Speaker 1: the country is riven, even blue bastions are riven with divisiveness.
Speaker 1: What do you think are the keys for your party
Speaker 1: right now? What should they be doing in this time
Speaker 1: of incredible disruption and quite frankly chaos in national politics?
Speaker 2: General comment. After President Trump got elected in November, I
Speaker 2: felt like we had three or four months of the
Speaker 2: proverbial deer in the headlight, just frozen, couldn't believe it happened, sideways, etc.
Speaker 2: That's begun to change, and not necessarily for good reasons.
Speaker 2: All the volatility, all the chaos, all the threats, and
Speaker 2: things like Social Security, Medicare, seniors, prescription drugs, Medicaid. This
Speaker 2: has begun to rouse up the base of our party
Speaker 2: again kind of for all the wrong reasons. But it's
Speaker 2: reminiscent now of what it felt like to me, at
Speaker 2: least in the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen midterm cycle, where
Speaker 2: the Democrats did quite well. As you rightfully point out,
Speaker 2: I got elected in seventeen, and we had big successes
Speaker 2: in the midterm elections in eighteen. It feels like that's
Speaker 2: the direction we're headed again, not necessarily for the right reasons.
Speaker 2: I'd say two things more specific to me. One is
Speaker 2: you've got to meet people where they are, and that's
Speaker 2: pretty much always the kitchen table. What are you doing
Speaker 2: for affordability? What are we doing for opportunity? Are my
Speaker 2: kids going to have a better shape than we had?
Speaker 2: Rising healthcare costs, energy costs? What are we doing explicitly
Speaker 2: to push back on inflation? That's one the thing that
Speaker 2: we've a mantra that we've lived by. The Other is
Speaker 2: this is more of a national I was the National
Speaker 2: Finance Chair when Howard Dean was the chair and what
Speaker 2: really struck me and attracted me to work with Howard
Speaker 2: as a volunteer was his fifty state strategy. So I
Speaker 2: think the Republican Party does that really well. The plumbing,
Speaker 2: the wiring, the non sexy stuff that makes parties go
Speaker 2: day in and day out. We're not good at that.
Speaker 2: So getting back to those basics, I think we'll do that.
Speaker 2: The new chair feels like he's of that school of thought,
Speaker 2: But to me, it's the unsexy, quiet, boring stuff that
Speaker 2: I think distinguished as political parties.
Speaker 1: We're speaking as the news is breaking that Governor Josh
Speaker 1: Shapiro of Pennsylvania that there appears to ben Arson at
Speaker 1: the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. Is it scary to be
Speaker 1: a public figure right now?
Speaker 2: I think it's scary, But it's a sign of the times.
Speaker 2: Josh is a great guy. He's a very close friend.
Speaker 2: We were back and forth yesterday this news broke. It's
Speaker 2: just that it tells you a lot about the tension
Speaker 2: out there right now, the fact that somebody would even
Speaker 2: think about this. So you want to obviously, you want
Speaker 2: to make sure that the folks, the professionals who keep
Speaker 2: you safe and secure, are reviewing an incident like this
Speaker 2: and making sure that we're we've got a good system
Speaker 2: in place to prevent something like that from happening. But boy,
Speaker 2: we need to come together sooner than later as a country.
Speaker 2: We're Americans first and foremost, and that's getting lost in
Speaker 2: the sauce right now by too many folks out there.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to leave on a more hopeful note.
Speaker 1: What do you want to do next.
Speaker 2: In the immediate term, it's to run through the tape.
Speaker 2: We've got nine months to go and we want to
Speaker 2: make sure that those nine months are incredibly productive and
Speaker 2: that we are that we are sprinting, and that we're
Speaker 2: not putting our feet up. So that's the near term commitment.
Speaker 2: I don't know beyond next January. I really don't. My
Speaker 2: guess is there'll be some amount of public service. We're
Speaker 2: spending a lot of time in hand to hand combat
Speaker 2: with a lot of things I mentioned in the environment,
Speaker 2: the volatility that we probably weren't anticipating would be doing.
Speaker 2: That's probably taken up some of the otherwise free time
Speaker 2: to think about what's next. But no news to break,
Speaker 2: but I promise you when there is, we'll give you
Speaker 2: a shout.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Governor Murphy, thank you for being a friend
Speaker 1: to showbiz, Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening. Be
Speaker 1: sure to leave us a review at Apple podcast our
Speaker 1: Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go
Speaker 1: to Variety dot com and sign up for the free
Speaker 1: weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in
Speaker 1: next week for another episode of Strictly Business.