You may have recognized the streets of Hoboken in the 2024 Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, noticed that an idyllic golf course in Happy Gilmore 2 was Bedminster’s Fiddler’s Elbow country club, or seen Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain in the thriller Mother’s Instinct and realized that the stars were actually in Cranford.
New Jersey towns are ready for their close-ups, and the state is paving the way to make more movie magic happen. More than 50 communities, including Jersey City, Bedminster and Cranford, have been given the designation of “film ready” since the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission (NJMPTC) launched its Film Ready New Jersey program in 2023.
Little City Books in Hoboken gets transformed into the Music Inn (a real Greenwich Village music store) for the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Photo: Courtesy of Kate Jacobs/Little City Books
As the Garden State solidifies its status as a major filming destination in the United States, the program is a key resource for the towns that are interested in hosting productions, as well as the films and TV shows searching for locations to use. For the towns, the NJMPTC offers training and tools through a five-step certification program, so that the communities can market themselves to productions and then actually become prepared to host filming. On the movie and TV side, the Film Ready program makes New Jersey a more attractive filming location by simplifying the scouting process, offering clear and comprehensive information about each of New Jersey’s film-ready towns, creating consistency, and letting productions know which towns are truly ready to host them.
“In Manhattan, [producers] know what a permit fee is; in Jersey, they must navigate 564 municipalities, each with their own set of rules,” says NJMPTC executive director Jon Crowley. “Film-ready towns bring all these locations on the same page, meaning that when you come to New Jersey, you know what to expect.”
Adam Sandler and director Kyle Newacheck (far left) film Happy Gilmore 2 at Fiddler’s Elbow country club in Bedminster. Photo: Scott Yamano/Netflix
New Jersey has always had a vast array of location options, from cities to farms, and the Film Ready program makes them easier for filmmakers to book. NJMPTC associate director David W. Schoner Jr. describes the state as having an “ability to create America in miniature,” giving filmmakers the exact type of location they need for any given story, whether it takes place in a city, a rural setting, a suburban neighborhood, the mountains or the beach.
Jersey towns can even transcend time periods. “One of the things that we do very well, because our cities are kind of old and have that kind of vibe and feel,” Schoner adds, “we can play Europe when you’re in Paterson.” (Indeed, Prime Video’s series Hunters used Paterson for a scene involving the Warsaw Ghetto).
That’s on top of the generous tax credits that then Governor Murphy reinstated in 2018, then expanded in 2020, as well as many towns’ locations within New York City’s 30-mile Studio Zone—measured from Columbus Circle—which allows crew members to qualify as local New York City hires under union agreements, and offers other benefits to the studios.
Jersey City is currently New Jersey’s most active film-ready municipality, according to the NJMPTC, followed by Newark, West Orange, Atlantic City, Cranford, Maplewood, Plainfield, Livingston, Hanover Township, Rahway and Union Township.
Maintaining relationships between towns and studios creates a feedback loop that results in more films being shot in-state, more local revenue being brought in, and towns being revisited for future projects.
A brief parade scene in Bros (2022) was a big boost for Cranford’s economy. Photo: Courtesy of NJEDA
That’s what happened in Cranford, a Union County town with a charming business district. It has been a setting of several films in recent years—including Mother’s Instinct (2024), Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Presence (2024), the comedy Bros (2022), and Adam Sandler’s Netflix comedy Don’t Say Good Luck, out this year—and the town has reaped the economic benefits. A brief parade scene in Bros (starring Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane) helped put $600,000 into Cranford’s economy, plus $20,000-$30,000 for balloons from Kenilworth’s Dream Factory Balloons store, says Downtown Cranford director Caren Demyen.
Mother’s Instinct had a significant presence in town, staying for a month and taking over half a block. The cast and crew were a delight, Demyen says.
To be designated Film Ready, a municipality must complete five steps: Attend a Film Ready workshop; name a liaison, who is a local government employee, to act as a contact for the production companies; create a permitting process; upload photos of at least eight locations within the community that might interest production companies; and submit a list of local resources, from catering companies to car rentals to security services.
When a studio “sees that seal of being Film Ready,” Crowley points out, “they know that is encouraging [for] the film production. They want us there, and they know what to expect when we land. And so that’s why they gravitate towards these film-ready towns. It’s a vote of confidence to them.”
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