Why are so many movies filmed in New York?
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They’re not! While there are a handful that are filmed in NYC, most movies and shows that are set in New York are filmed in Vancouver, Toronto, or Atlanta, where they can get a similar feel but save a lot of money from tax breaks designed to bring production and filming to those cities. Some more artful productions like Mr. Robot are filmed on location as a matter of principle.
If your question is why so many movies are *set* in New York, it’s because it’s such a recognizable setting (self fulfilling prophecy, I know), with a wide diversity of different options for a wide diversity of different lifestyles.
There’s a ton of Actors in New York. And Broadway.
Quite often, movies set in New York are filmed elsewhere.
There are a lot of reasons movies are filmed somewhere.
The biggest reason is that the city or state gives movie producers an advantage of some kind to film there.
For example a tax waiver or deduction. This makes it cheaper to film there and so attracts movie makers.
It’s an easily-recognized setting and the sheer size of it allows for a lot of different “feels” of neighborhood to be had without having to spend money taking crews and actors all over the place. Need skyscrapers? Go to Manhattan. Don’t need them? Go to maybe Queens. Suburban? Go more toward the outskirts. Need a park? Lots of parks.
It provides a lot of city in one place and once you get out of downtown Manhattan and the super-easily-recognized places like the Empire State Building and Times Square and the Flatiron, it’s not terribly difficult to find a location that hasn’t already been seen a million times.
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