The Bill That Was Supposed to Change Everything Didn’t Pass
Nevada’s Senate voted down AB238’s revival — filed as AB5 in a November 2025 special session — by a narrow 10-8 margin, killing the marquee legislation of the session and, with it, the fast track for Summerlin Studios. The bill would have raised the state’s film tax credit cap from $10 million a year to $120 million, part of a package worth as much as $1.8 billion in transferable credits over 15 years, and it was the financing mechanism behind a 31-acre studio project backed by Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Howard Hughes Holdings. For producers who’ve heard “Hollywood 2.0” pitched as Nevada’s answer to Georgia and New Mexico, the practical update is that it isn’t law yet, and there’s no new timeline for when — or if — it will be.
The Incentive Nevada Already Has Isn’t Moving the Needle
That matters because Nevada’s existing program was never large to begin with. At $10 million annually, the current credit is a fraction of what neighboring incentive states offer, and reporting on the program has noted that a large share of the allocation goes unclaimed most years — productions aren’t lining up for it the way they do in Georgia or New Mexico. Producers budgeting a Nevada shoot right now should treat the state credit as a minor line item, not a deciding factor, and shouldn’t build a schedule around Summerlin Studios’ opening date, because there isn’t one yet.
None of That Has Slowed Actual Production Down
What hasn’t stalled is the volume of work already happening on the ground. The Sphere continues to book marquee residencies fresh off hosting the Eagles, Kelly Clarkson and Kenny Chesney are both running concurrent Strip residencies this summer, Ed Sheeran’s LOOP Tour lands at Allegiant Stadium, and CinemaCon brought Warner Bros., Sony, and a full international slate back to the Strip this spring. In February, Coffee House Industries built a custom Paramount+ LED octagon stage for a UFC production shoot at the UFC Apex. None of that depended on a soundstage subsidy — it’s built on Las Vegas’s existing inventory of neon, water, glass, and stadium-scale architecture, which is exactly the inventory an aerial unit is built to capture.
The Real Budget Line Item Is Airspace, Not Incentives
The detail that actually affects a Vegas shoot’s timeline is airspace, not tax policy. Most of the Strip sits inside Harry Reid International’s Class B shelf and within the five-mile radius that Nevada law (NRS 493.109) treats as a misdemeanor to enter without the airport’s consent or FAA authorization. Harry Reid doesn’t support LAANC, the automated system that clears most drone flights near airports within minutes — every Strip-area authorization has to go through FAA DroneZone as a manual request, which runs on a longer, less predictable clock. Layer a Clark County or Las Vegas Film Office permit on top of that, and a producer who treats Vegas airspace clearance like a same-week formality is the producer who loses a shoot day.
Get In Touch
CineDrones runs Strip-area DroneZone authorizations and local film permits as a standard part of booking a Las Vegas aerial unit, so the timeline gets built around the real bottleneck instead of getting surprised by it. Get in touch with CineDrones to start the airspace clearance process before your shoot date is locked.
