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Walking out of a Marie Antoinette film feast at Nitehawk Cinema last night, I was immediately silenced by a very self-important production crew that was allegedly filming the new season of that Pete Holmes show Crashing. After listening to a vaguely homophobic sound guy explain how gay people can go to honky-tonk bars in Williamsburg but wouldn't make it in Texas (I'm from Texas), I thought to myself: Why is this happening? When will these constant film shoots in our neighborhoods end?
Not anytime soon, according to the mayor's office. Today, Mayor de Blasio announced that a whopping 56 TV series were filmed in NYC in the 2016-2017 season, 17 of which were pilots. This is the seventh year that the record has been topped, with more networks jumping in to tell stories in the Big Apple. And to think that Girls isn't even on anymore.
“We are experiencing a new golden age of television," the mayor said in an official announcement. “Production activity is spreading out to all five boroughs, and with it, more and more good-paying jobs for New Yorkers.”
Sure, I may want to complain that these Marvel shows are starting to multiply like Gremlins (but with way less personality than the little guys), but the good news is that fewer and fewer of the shows are predictable network fare, with series filming for FreeFrom, HBO, Amazon Prime and beyond. What's more, all this filming contributes nearly $9 billion to our local economy and provides over 130,000 full-time jobs.
I'd still trade it all for 30 Rock to still be on.