Dan Patrick Declares War on Hollywood
Amid Visions of Religious Movie Hotbed
Capitol Inside
April 3, 2025
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick sought to defuse a hurricane of conservative criticism on Thursday when he defended a $500 million infusion for the resurrection of a Texas film industry as an investment that would make the Lone Star State a religious movie mecca.
Confronting an array of subjects at a press conference beside the state Senate chamber, Patrick said that all of the country's "faith based movie producers" had advised him that Texas would become the headquarters for that particular genre.
"We want to put Hollywood out of business,” Patrick said.
The lieutenant governor said Texas should be in position to overtake Georgia as the number one state for film incentives in the U.S. But that could be a tall order in light of the fact that Georgia for foot the bill for nearly $1.4 billion in incentives for film and television productions - almost three times the amount of subsidies that legislation Patrick is pushing has proposed.
Patrick shared his vision for the Texas industry revival a day after the Finance Committee rallied behind the film incentives package in Senate Bill 22 with a unanimous show of support. Sponsored by State Senator Joan Huffman of Houston in her role as the budget panel chair, the movie money proposal can expect a friendly audience in the House as well after the Senate approves it on the floor in a move that will be a foregone conclusion with Patrick leading the charge.
Patrick's pitch for faith-based productions came just three days after Matthew McConaughey suggested to the committee that he would be willing to sacrifice some artistic freedom to placate Texas legislators who don't want the state to bankroll films and television shows that make the state look bad. Woody Harrelson appeared with McConaughey at the witness table for a hearing on SB 22 on Monday.
Harrelson let McConaughy do all the talking but offered no objections to his fellow actor's effective endorsement of public money for movies that portray Texas in a light that the Republicans who run the Legislature here won't find offensive.
McConaughey said that Texas resources, location and other virtues that would give it a chance to become a motion picture haven in a league with Hollywood if lawmakers were serious about the industry here. While McConaughey gave the impression he'd shooting more movies in Texas with a viable incentives program, the Oscar-winner who calls Austin home said nothing
about refusing to ply his trade in Los Angeles as well if a Texas industry took off.
SB 22 is on the Senate intent calendar for Monday. An identical measure that GOP State Rep. Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi has sponsored was referred on Monday to the Culture, Recreation & Tourism Committee. The film incentives proposal appears poised to sail through the House where it could attract 20 or 30 opposing votes from conservative Republicans on the floor.
Patrick echoed McConaughey's assertions that the Texas economy could expect $4 in return for every one dollar that the state invests in the motion picture industry.
Republicans on the right want the state to earmark a $24 billion surplus for property tax relief. They've branded film incentives as corporate welfare for the worst kind of liberals.
Patrick defended the Senate's proposed state budget for the next two years as a conservative plan. "How is it we ended up with a $40 billion surplus?" Patrick said in reference to the state's financial health two years ago.
Patrick said the state has surplus funds because it did not spend all of its money. But Patrick did not acknowledge that the surplus at the outset of the last regular session was a product of nearly $40 billion in covid stimulus funds that the state received from the federal government in 2021 in a package that Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress approved without a single Republican vote.
more to come ...
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