With the Paramount+ prequel series “Dexter: Original Sin” going back in time to explore the formative experiences of 20-year-old avenging serial killer (Patrick Gibson), there’s a hope that it will help turn back the clock for the production community in Miami, which serves as the setting for both it and the original show, “Dexter” (2006-2013). Like its predecessor, “Dexter: Original Sin” does the bulk of its shooting in Los Angeles and Long Beach, but it’s still a good advertisement for what Miami has to offer producers.
“We wanted to get the full impact of the beauty and the texture and the architecture, the water and the atmosphere that is specific in Miami,” says Danielle Blumstein, co-head of production for Counterpart Studios, which produces the series with Showtime Studios. “We looked for locations that would help ground us and kind of celebrate that city.”
“Dexter” is one of several Miami-set projects that have materialized in recent months, including the Netflix medical show “Pulse,” which shoots in both Miami and Albuquerque, N.M., and Peacock’s upcoming crime thriller series “M.I.A.”
A big reason for the uptick in production is the High Impact Film Fund. Launched by Miami-Dade County in May 2024 in response to the state of Florida’s continued unwillingness to reestablish a film and TV incentive, it offers a cash rebate of up to 20%. Productions must have a minimum budget of $5 million, base 90% of the Florida shoot in the county and have 60% of the below-the-line crew be county residents and 70% of their vendors be locally registered businesses.
“The program has been a great success,” says Miami-Dade County film commissioner Marco Giron. “We’ve managed to attract large scale projects to Miami-Dade County that otherwise would not have been in our region.”
The city of Miami Beach also offers its own incentive, stackable with the county’s, that targets smaller productions, including commercials, which are not eligible for most programs. Projects shooting three days or more with a minimum spend of $25,000 can qualify for a $10,000 cash rebate.
“We call it the small-but-mighty film incentive,” says Lissette Garcia Arrogante, director of tourism and culture for the city of Miami Beach. Also, “our film permits are free, we don’t charge you for square footage fees, and we give you some free vehicle access passes for shooting on the beachfront.”
Miami-Dade is sweetening the pot further via a partnership with the Commonwealth of the Bahamas that calls for the latter to create a film and TV incentive that can be stacked with the High Impact Film Fund.
It might seem redundant, given that both locales are known for their beaches, but Miami’s are backed by an urban skyline, while the Bahamas’ have a more isolated feel and boast turquoise waters almost as clear as a swimming pool. The archipelago also offers a unique island culture
“In the Bahamas you get, music, you get festivals, you get interesting foods … the way people speak,” says Bahamas film commissioner Clarence Rolle. “And it’s just a tropical feast when it comes to the scenery, the look.”
Scheduled to launch in March, the Bahamas incentive will offer a 30% rebate for projects with a minimum local spend of $100,000. But the rebate only applies to the first $120,000 of expenditures.
Miami-Dade’s incentive also has some limitations, notably it’s $10 million annual cap, which effectively keeps big-budget tentpole features from basing the entirety of their shoot in the county. In contrast, its neighbor to the north, Georgia, has an uncapped film and TV tax credit program that pays out more than a billion dollars every year. This is why 2024’s Miami-set “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” which had a reported budget of $100 million, did the bulk of its shooting in Atlanta, spending only a few weeks in Florida.
“If you want to shoot South Beach, it’s pretty hard to re-create it somewhere else, so that helps us,” says James (Jimmy) Roberts, business manager of IATSE Local 477 in Miami, the union that reps the majority of the crew members working on film, television and commercial projects in the state. But given what’s available in Georgia, “it’s kind of irresponsible to go somewhere else from a fiscal perspective.”
It was competition from Georgia and Louisiana (which boasts a tax credit of up to 40%) that led the Florida legislature to pass an incentive package in 2010 that offered a 20% base tax credit, with additional 5% bumps for shooting in the off-season (June 1-Nov. 30) and family-friendly productions, for a potential total of 30%.
The incentive helped keep USA Net work’s long-running “Burn Notice” (2007-2013) in the state and attracted series such as Netflix’s “Bloodline,” Starz’s “Magic City” and HBO’s “Ballers,” starring Dwayne Johnson, as well as features including “Step Up Revolution” and the Los Angeles-set “Rock of Ages,” starring Tom Cruise. But the Florida legislature let the incentive expire in 2016. Subsequently, “Bloodline” was cancelled and “Ballers” relocated to Los Angeles, after shooting two sea sons in Miami, to take advantage of California’s tax credit.
“When we did ‘Burn Notice,’ we had a community of vendors that really weren’t directly related to film,” says veteran production manager E.K. Keratsis. “Dry cleaners, bodegas, food delivery — little mom and little pop places that thrived on our backs. A lot of those small places closed up. They either went to Georgia or just shut down.”
Absent big Hollywood projects, the local Miami crew base has subsisted primarily on commercial shoots that come from around the world to take advantage of the beautiful beaches, year-round sunshine and a steady stream of reality shows such as “The Real Housewives of Miami” and “Love & Hip Hop: Miami.” It also greatly benefits from the presence of Spanish-language television giants Telemundo and Univision, which have large studio complexes in Miami and nearby Doral, respectively, and bring in major events like the Latin Grammys and the Billboard Awards that have a trickle-down effect on employment.
For example, “the Billboard Awards put on a small concert series. Their agency hired a production company out of Los Angeles, who then in turn hires us to produce and film the entire concert,” explains director of photography Adolfo Ferro of Miami-based Fifty Three Films. “And then through out that concert, you have other activations happening. You have Pizza Hut, doing interviews in one area; you’ve got Burger King doing interviews in another. Everyone just kind of takes advantage of the hub and the amount of talent that’s coming down here.”
Not all the project flow is incoming: In December, it was reported that the Apple+ series “Bad Monkey,” which shot its first season on Florida locations including Miami, would be shooting its second season in California, where it had qualified for $20.6 million in tax credits. But filmmakers like Harmony Korine, who’s shot a string of movies in Florida including “Spring Breakers” (2012) and “Baby Invasion” (2024), are determined to stay put, come what may.
“Harmony’s whole thing is, yes, he cares about the incentives, but for him, when he gets stuck on an area and he likes [it], he’s going to shoot here no matter what,” says “Baby Invasion” producer Judd Allison. “Instead of doing some of the huge budget stuff, we’ve done some independent films and we’re still able to work here.”
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