Kicking off production season, Apple TV’s “Dark Matter” is opening up portals in Wicker Park, “The Bear” is cooking up drama downtown and the seemingly omnipresent One Chicago (Fire/Med/P.D.) is staging emergencies across the city.
But who’s here to roll out the red carpet as those teams arrive? The city’s top film post has been vacant since December.
Some alderpersons have said they want to see film and television drum up more dollars for the Chicago economy, but that call comes as the film industry faces some serious challenges. President Donald Trump called Hollywood a “very troubled place” while vowing to fix it with the help of allies like actors Mel Gibson and Jon Voight. And Hollywood is constricting, with less work being made overall while studios consolidate.
At this crossroads moment, industry leaders agree that Illinois has the components for success: a robust crew base, a varied landscape that can pass for almost anything (except maybe a desert) and a tax credit that adds incentive. In 2022 — the most recent year not affected by Hollywood strikes for which figures are available — the state had a record-setting $691 million in film production expenditures.
These leaders agree that Chicago has an outsized role to play. But the ouster of Jonah Zeiger as the head of the Chicago Film Office and a wave of staff changes at the city Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) under Commissioner Clinée Hedspeth means fewer people are recruiting film crews and sealing the deal in an industry that’s all about relationships.
As of earlier this week, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events said Zeiger’s successor has not been named. Zeiger is one of at least 18 staffers to leave the department since last March, public records show. Zeiger says he doesn’t know why he was edged out.
“It was never made clear to me,” he says. “I know that I was given direction to limit, then ultimately refrain, my engagement with stakeholders and community partners, and I never quite understood why I was receiving that guidance.”
“It became clear that they really wanted to go in a different direction,” he says. “So, I’m really eager to learn, along with the rest of us that care about this community, what direction that is and who will be moving into leadership there.”
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events did not make any officials available for an interview for this story. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s press office has not replied to questions about the Film Office vacancy nor how film fits into his overall agenda.
No local film czar on duty
Beyond recruiting feature films, TV shows, commercials and more to shoot in Chicago, the city’s Film Office serves as the hub for permitting and logistical support for production crews while they are in town.
Zeiger began in the top role there in late 2022. In his two-year stint, he says the big wins included being a part of a record-setting year in film production expenditures statewide, partnering with the Sundance Institute on a local event and “The Bear’s” rocket-ship success, which highlights Chicago’s gritty beauty in a way that’s often missed in how the city is perceived nationally.
When he made the leap from university film programs to government, Zeiger said he hoped to fill what he has long perceived as a hole in the local film industry.
“I’ve seen the potential of Chicago to come into its own as a real hub for original content, but there’s been this big gap, and the problem is that there’s no larger entity that’s well-capitalized that can help bring all these stakeholders together,” Zeiger said.
Now, on the other side of his government tenure, Zeiger says he thinks true transformation will require a mix of public and private partners, but he still believes the city has an important role to play.
“I think that there’s an opportunity right now — like, this year — to bring together the best folks in Chicago that want to create a new entity or new infrastructure for investment in original content; where creatives are in the driver’s seat, not Hollywood studio executives and lawyers, and that’s what I would like to see,” he says. Zeigler says he submitted a long-range strategic plan for Chicago’s film and television industry to the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events leadership and the mayor’s office in August, but he says he never received a reply.
The challenge of luring productions has gotten stiffer. States like Georgia and international locations like Ireland and Australia have generous incentives that are tough to compete with.
“Those communities have really taken off like wildfire,” says Christine Dudley, head of the Illinois Production Alliance. “You’re seeing a lot of production that, quite bluntly, in my opinion, could be filmed here that’s being taken offshore because the film tax credit benefit, and some other benefits, became very appealing, especially during the strikes and the pandemic.”
While every advantage matters, some in the industry say they have more or less been able to charge ahead with business as usual, despite the city perch sitting empty.
“Would it be nice to have someone there now? Yes. Can we still get work done? Yes,” says Michael Scott Jr., the former alderperson and current Cook County commissioner who heads Cinespace’s community and government relations.
“It is problematic to not have a Chicago Film Office director,” says Peter Hawley, head of the Illinois Film Office. “That said, Betsey Grais [the office’s deputy director] and the other folks who are doing very good work in the Chicago Film Office are keeping things running. I mean, the permits are going out.”
Eyes on Springfield
Last summer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed an expansion of the state’s tax credit to include benefits for nonscripted television like talk and game shows. That was quickly used by late-night giants like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, who broadcast from Chicago during August’s Democratic National Convention.
The tax incentive, which originally rolled out in 2008, offers a credit of 30% of all qualified in-state production spending, plus a 30% credit on Illinois salaries up to $500,000 per worker. There are additional incentives on salaries paid to workers from economically disadvantaged places.
Industry insiders say Illinois’ credit is best suited to benefit episodic television with midsize budgets — something TV bigwig Dick Wolf quickly underscored with his One Chicago shows. Cinespace’s Scott says that benefits local workers too.
“Episodic keeps people working for, you know, six, seven, eight months,” Scott says. “It keeps stages booked, which is what we want to do. We want to keep as many people working in this industry as possible.”
Scott says Illinois has to stay competitive, but he also cautioned that it may not want to be the next Atlanta, where a generous film credit has attracted a huge amount of blockbuster production in recent years.
“I think we want to grow, but we want to grow in a way that is more controlled than Atlanta,” Scott says. “Because if you grow too fast, any and everybody comes in and becomes a stage operator, and then there’s a race to the bottom. Everybody’s trying to take the tax credit, and then you may have doled out money that you shouldn’t.”
In the Trump era, when diversity and inclusion efforts are under attack, Illinois’ Democratic governor could also be good for business, says Hawley with the state Film Office. Last March, Pritzker and a state delegation journeyed to Hollywood to sell Illinois to top industry executives.
“One of the other things we heard consistently in Los Angeles is that they really like Gov. Pritzker, and they really like his progressive ideals,” Hawley says. “We are a blue state compared to other states, and that is definitely an asset for us.”
But Pritzker is the governor and, according to the Illinois Film Office, about 90% of filming happens in Chicago, where Johnson is in charge. And there’s big money to be made: A study commissioned by the Production Alliance in late 2023 found that for every $1 invested through the film tax credit, there was a nearly $7 benefit to the state economy.
“We teasingly say, ‘When the circus comes to town, there’s a lot of money,’ ” Dudley says.