LAS VEGAS — LAS VEGAS (AP) — Movies like “The Hangover” and “Ocean’s Eleven” piqued interest in the Las Vegas Strip long ago. But now Nevada labor unions hoping to boost jobs and tourism are pushing state officials to offer tax credits aimed at bringing more Hollywood filmmaking to the state.
The effort to offer up to $95 million in tax credits to Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery for a new film production facility in the Vegas suburbs didn’t win enough legislative support earlier this year. But more than a dozen labor unions are pushing to revive the proposal during an expected special session next month.
“We believe if we can get the public behind us, we’ll be able to get the legislators to understand what a big change this can bring to Southern Nevada,” said Tommy White, business manager-secretary treasurer of Laborers’ International Union of North America, Local 872 in Las Vegas.
Trade unions formed a political action committee called Nevada Jobs Now, which has raised over $1 million to be used for digital advertisements, mailers and some TV commercials, White said. The production companies behind the project say it would create 19,000 construction jobs.
If the unions are successful, Las Vegas would be competing with cities like Atlanta, where the film industry has boomed for more than a decade thanks to a far more generous tax break. California, meanwhile, recently revamped its own tax incentive programs to combat a multiyear downward trend in Hollywood film production.
The production companies would not come to Las Vegas if they don’t receive the tax incentives, according to David O’Reilly, CEO of Howard Hughes Holdings, the developer of the proposal called Summerlin Studios. It would include 10 movie stages, hotels, a medical center and be part of a master-planned neighborhood in West Las Vegas.
“There would be no reason for Sony and Warner to film in Nevada when they can get tax credits in 20 other states or around the globe,” he said. “They need to bring their productions to where they have the best economic deal, and we’re just trying to make Nevada