Tennessee has long been a force in the entertainment business with its rich musical history. Now, as more motion picture productions pop up throughout the state, it has its eye on becoming the “Hollywood of the South.”
Nashville, Memphis and Chattanooga all have landed high-profile film or television projects this year that are either in or beginning production.
And while 2024 has been a good year for the growth of Tennessee’s film industry, 2025 promises to be even better for “Made in Tennessee” projects as actors and moviemakers continue moving to the Nashville area.
At the top of the list of Tennessee projects is “Scarpetta,” based on the bestselling crime novels by author Patricia Cornwell. In conjunction with Blumhouse Television, Amazon’s Prime Video ordered two seasons of the thriller starring Oscar and Emmy-winning actresses Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Filming began Oct. 28 and is scheduled to continue into late February or early March. Crews have been spotted in Germantown at locations such as Waldo’s Chicken & Beer and Little Hats Italian Market.
“They’re going to be filming the entire (“Scarpetta”) series here on location in the state of Tennessee,” says Bob Raines, executive director of the Tennessee Entertainment Commission. “That’s going to provide anywhere from an $80 million to $100 million economic impact for our state. It will provide upward of maybe around 400 jobs for our community. And they’re going to (shoot until) March in 2025. So that was a really great anchor production for us.”
Raines has spent much of this week speaking at the Film-Com (online) conference and is scheduled to speak at this weekend’s Script-Com (in person) screenwriting conference, which includes one panel session that asks “Is Tennessee the new Hollywood?”
The answer would probably be “not yet” – especially considering Georgia’s burgeoning industry – but filmmaking in Tennessee is certainly trending upward into 2025. Raines notes that while none of the current projects are big-budget tentpoles like a Marvel movie, they do keep the project pipeline flowing into the state.
The overall film industry is still recovering from a double-whammy since the 2020 COVID pandemic followed by the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes.
“Our pipeline right now is looking good. I mean, I think we’re working on 24 active projects right now for the state,” Raines says. “All of those are in different status – whether it be development, whether it be finance, whether it be preproduction.
“(It’s) not the pipeline that we thought in 2023, but decent. And then, of course, ‘Scarpetta’ being the big anchor production I’m talking about. The others are much more moderate budgets that are filming.”
The Chattanooga project, already filming, is a six-episode series called “County Rescue” and starring Julia Reilly (“Stranger Things”) and Brett Varvel (“American Underdog”). In Memphis, Kevin Sorbo (“Hercules”) will star in “Elijah Peel,” which has been described as a feel-good rock-and-roll drama.
Economic report tracks growth spurt
Raines, who has spearheaded the TEC since 2011, says the Commission’s new economic audit for 2023 is not yet ready for release, but he did share some facts and figures from the motion picture and video production sector that he says shouldn’t change.
“One interesting statistic that’s come up in this new economic report is that, in the last 10 years, our motion picture end-of-year production community grew by 126%,” Raines says. “It’s a positive direction that we see that kind of growth in the industry.
“Right now, we’re projecting that the motion picture and video production employment is projected to grow another 36% over the next 10 years.”
The state’s upcoming report on entertainment growth in 2023 is even more impressive when compared to the 2022 economic impact audit for 2021.
“It looks like this sector (in 2023) generated an estimated $613 million in what we call gross state product, which I believe is up from around $400 million a couple of years ago. So we’ve seen an uptick in the gross state product in the sector,” Raines says.
“And out of that $613 million, about $360 million are new earnings for Tennessee workers. So that’s a good number.”
Those new earnings also reflect a growth in the sector’s support industry, ranging from production to cast and crew to catering to fashion and an array of other businesses.
“We’ve also seen a bit of an add-in businesses moving here that service production,” Raines says. “I think right now we’re at 463 businesses that are within that motion picture and video production sector. That’s a bit of growth from last time. I think our last audit was around 300 and change.”
Working to bring work here
Raines interprets those numbers as a reflection of the recovery from COVID – which gut-punched every segment of the national economy – and the film industry, which also had to deal with labor strikes.
Now that those strikes have been settled, some productions have resumed but with unexpected results for states like Georgia, Louisiana and others which have become movie production hotbeds. That means, Raines notes, some production crew members have come to Tennessee looking for work.
“From the industry perspective, after 2023, what ended up happening is a lot of U.S. production ended up moving internationally. So that’s just the trend across the board. I think Georgia was impacted by that because they were doing much larger budgeted movies,” Raines says. “Those have now left the United States. Or a lot of them have left the United States.
“And so, in that time, we’ve gotten people from Georgia coming up here and working. And people from Kentucky coming down here and working. We definitely see that. … I just know that their larger budgeted movies have went out of state. And so, yes, there is crew now in Georgia (that) have come up here and worked on productions (in Tennessee).”
With more entertainment industry businesses and leaders moving to Nashville and other parts of Tennessee, Raines says that also impacts the way he recruits film projects to the state.
The ultimate goal, Raines points out, is to keep Tennesseans working.
“Our priority with the program is always to invest in movies that are being made here in the state, that are being produced in the state,” he says.
“We’re looking for projects that could be developed here, that could be produced here. Postproduction could be done here. That’s always sort of our first priority when we talk with anybody, if you’re in the state (or) that are Tennesseans. Is this Tennessee-centric? Not necessarily for the content of it, but is it being developed here?”
As industry leaders flock to Nashville and the talent pool continues to grow, it means he can look at more projects within the state’s borders.
“I’ve been working with this industry for a while now and been able to see us come from a place where I think we looked to more outbound productions or we looked to more outbound investments to come into our state,” Raines says.
“But now to see the ability for us to grow from within our state, it really, truly is a success right in the right way forward for us to build a really foundational community here and one that is foundationally solidified and one that can be sustainable and one for long term.
“The people that continue to come into our state and are participating in the industry, they continue to be top-tier professionals that really have great backgrounds and they have this great network which they’re able to really push production out. So it’s an interesting shift at this time. It’s an interesting dynamic in our state.”