A local filmmaker chose to shoot his most recent feature in Coconut Grove, bucking an industry trend that has seen producers forsake Florida for friendlier climes.
There was a time when Miami was a hot-spot location for movies and TV shows.
Movies like “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), “Marley & Me (2008), “Bad Boys II” (2003) and “Moonlight” (2016) – all were shot in Miami.
Today, that spotlight has faded. The reason: economics.
The state-funded incentives that once drew filmmakers to Florida have dried up, and the industry has gone in search of better deals elsewhere.
“Georgia has incentives, New York just enhanced its incentives to compete with New Jersey, which has very good incentives, and they are trying to compete with the UK, which has really big incentives,” said filmmaker David Frankel, who lives in Coconut Grove and directed “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Marley & Me.”
“Everyone is chasing the best deal they can get because making movies has become so expensive,” he added.
Miami still has its charms, though, especially for local filmmakers like Herschel Faber, who’s new film “Ethan Bloom” was shot in Coconut Grove.
“Miami is just so incredibly cinematic and we don’t see it enough on screen,” Faber told the Spotlight.
“I still believe that if you’re writing a story and it’s in Florida, make it in Florida,” he said. “No matter what, figure out a way.”
Faber described his latest film as a “love letter” to Miami and Coconut Grove. The film premiered last year at the Miami Film Festival, and screened last weekend as part of the Key Biscayne Film Festival.
“It’s a coming-of-age story set in the world of faith,” Faber said. “It’s about a Jewish adolescent boy who’s secretly becoming a Catholic.”
In the five weeks it took to film “Ethan Bloom,” Faber shot predominantly in the Grove with a couple of scenes shot in Miami Beach.
A friend of Faber’s loaned him her home in the Grove for a month over the summer while she was away. That served as the setting for the main character’s house.
“A Hollywood production would have paid a crazy amount of money for that house and we got it for free, which was amazing,” he said.
Faber also shot footage at Danielle Gelato on Main Highway, at The Mutiny on South Bayshore Drive, and at Kennedy Park, where A.C.’s Icees makes a cameo appearance.
“In terms of shooting in Miami, it was great, particularly in the Grove,” he said. “All of the local businesses were super accommodating.”
His budget? Less than $1 million, he said.
“I think the Grove is still a really special place for artists,” Faber said. “I think it’s always been that way, even though it’s changing before our eyes.”
“That was another reason why I wanted to shoot here,” he added, “because every day I’m driving on Tigertail there’s a new high-rise popping up.”
“I don’t want the magic of the Grove to get lost,” he said.
Faber isn’t the only independent filmmaker working in Miami. The Miami Film Festival recently awarded $100,000 in cash prizes to six local filmmakers to support their work.
Read More: Miami Film Festival Awards Filmmaker $50K
Miami still attracts some big budget productions as well – the “Bad Boys” franchise has returned twice in recent years, splitting production between Miami and Atlanta – but Frankel, Faber and others say the scene isn’t what it used to be.
Faber, who is from New Smyrna Beach and now lives in Pinecrest, spent his childhood summers visiting relatives in the Grove and in Miami Beach. He remembers when filmmakers seemed fixated on Florida.
“Miami was like Hollywood,” he said. “There were so many movies and TV shows coming to South Florida and even Orlando was really a hotbed.”
Read More: Faber spoke with WLRN last year in advance of his film’s premiere
To attract filmmakers, the Florida Legislature approved $296 million in tax credits from 2010 to 2016 for movie studios and production companies that filmed in Florida.
“It was really a fruitful place to work,” Faber recalled. “And then when the tax credit went away, there was this exodus where a lot of the people who were making a living in the entertainment and filmmaking community couldn’t do that anymore because filmmakers weren’t coming to Florida.”
Frankel remembers that time as well.
“I moved to Miami in the early 90s and it was at the tail end of the Miami Vice era,” he said. “Everyone was excited to try and turn South Florida into a production hub.”
His film “Marley & Me” was shot in the Grove and elsewhere in South Florida.
The 2008 movie was based on the best-selling book by South Florida journalist John Grogan about his mango-loving mischievous yellow Labrador named Marley. The movie featured Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson as the main (human) characters.
Frankel said the main challenge of shooting here was that there weren’t enough craft people and crew that resided in South Florida.
“Once you had to bring people here, it got expensive,” he explained.
He said the other challenge was the acting pool.
“That’s why New York and L.A. remained sort of the centers of production,” he said.
But when asked why he thought more movies aren’t filmed here now, Frankel pointed to the lack of incentives.
“These things are black and white – it’s just about money,” he said. “Until Florida is competitive with Georgia and New York and New Jersey, then it will always remain kind of a fantasy location,” he added.
“People will come if they absolutely need to capture Miami,” he said. “They’ll come here for a day or two or a week.”
There are film incentives to be had in Florida, but they are local.
Faber is currently fundraising to shoot a horror movie in the Grove and Miami Beach, and he’s comparing the incentives offered by Miami-Dade and Broward counties, based on his estimated budget.
“It’s been a little bit tricky because Miami-Dade County has a 10% rebate right now, up to the budget level that we’re working at,” Faber said.
In Broward, that rebate could be 20%, he said.
“If I’m looking at both of those options and I say well, wow, I could go to Georgia and get 30% back!” Faber said. “When you’re working with low budgets in particular, those incentives mean a lot to filmmakers and the fact that Miami-Dade isn’t really competitive is a problem.”
Mark Burns, executive director of the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District (BID) said in an email that he’s “not aware of any current or past incentives in the Grove.”
Joel Gonzalez is the senior advisor to the City of Miami’s manager, overseeing the Office of Film and Entertainment. The office provides services like permits and assistance with special events, film, television, music, commercial production and still photography businesses “to promote industry expansion and economic prosperity.”
“I’ve been involved with the film industry here since the early 90s,” says Gonzalez, who grew up in the City of Miami and who served as a lieutenant and a commanding officer for City of Miami Police Department for 28 years.
“We saw a lot of the major productions go to locations like Louisiana, Georgia and states where they have these incentives in place,” he said.
“It’s a shame because filming has a lot of benefits for the community, in both the publicity and the amount of money that’s spent,” he said.
Traffic is another consideration, Gonzalez said. With population growth in South Florida, there’s “less and less appetite for street closures or interruptions,” he said
“In the early 2000s we closed the MacArthur Causeway” for “Bad Boys II,” he said. “Think about trying to do that again today.”
Rene Garcia, the Miami-Dade County Commissioner who sponsored the county’s incentive package in 2024, said Miami could compete with other locations for film production, if the state once again dangled incentives.
“I believe the primary reason major film and television productions are no longer choosing Miami at the scale they once did is the lack of a competitive statewide incentive,” he told the Spotlight.
“If Florida has both competitive statewide and local incentive programs, Miami-Dade could once again be highly competitive in the industry,” he said.
“Miami’s beaches, sunshine, and unique scenery remain highly desirable, and many in the industry still want to film here,” said Garcia.
Asked if he would consider making another movie in Miami, Frankel said, “If things change, yeah.”
“I love the Grove,” he added. “It’s a gorgeous place.”
The elimination of Film Tax Incentives drove our South Florida film industry to Louisiana, Michigan, Georgia and Vancouver. Films are great, but the consistent economic engine were TV Shows like Miami Vice and Burn Notice. Made in South Florida Films and TV Shows also provide a huge amount of international PR that help to attract visitors and investors. Reestablishing Florida Film Tax Incentives would go a long way to once again attract the film industry and boost our economy, as well as our image throughout the world.