RuPaul & The Daniels Movies Among 51 Big Screen Projects Awarded California Tax Credits

Dominic Patten

19 March 2025 at 11:00 am·4-min read

Besides the fact that it’s scheduled to come out on June 22, 2026, very little is known right now about The Daniels upcoming movie at Universal. One thing we do know now is that the next film from the Everything Everywhere All At Once Oscar winners and producer Jonathan Wang is getting almost $21 million in tax credits from the state of California.

Along with a RuPaul Untitled Drag Queen Movie, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Untitled Daniels/Wang Project is among the 51 big screen projects that are the latest recipients of the Golden State’s incentives to promote filming in the home of Hollywood.

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Handing out a total of around $114 million, the 51 projects are the largest awarded in any single round ever in the history of California’s TV and film incentives program.

“We are LA filmmakers, with very dear LA friends, who happen to be some of the greatest creative talents we’ve worked with,” The Daniels and Wang said early Wednesday. “On Everything Everywhere All At Once we received the California tax credit, and had we not, it would have been utterly impossible to make that film, the trio added of the $330 million annual program administrated by the California Film Commission. “We were also deeply moved by the CFC’s commitment to supporting local filmmakers and the broader community. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to film our next project in Los Angeles, creating jobs and opportunities for countless Californians.”

The 46 independent and 5 non-independent films, as the CFC designates them, are anticipated by the state to hire around 6,490 cast and crew members, with 37,000 background performers provided day work. In an industry that is struggling with scant productions in relative terms, the 51 chosen movies could spend in the realm of $346.9 million in wages and put out $577.8 million in qualified expenditures statewide – all of which adds up to some serious tax revenues eventually.

Here is the full list of successful tax incentive applicants in this latest movie round.

If that doesn’t put this round of recipients on point, RuPaul is flying the California tax credit flag today too.

“Category is: there’s no place like home!” the Untitled Drag Queen Movie producer and RuPaul’s Drag Race host declares. “As someone who’s produced a TV series in Los Angeles for 17 years, I’m thrilled that our feature film, Untitled Drag Queen Movie, is receiving tax credits from the California Film Commission. These incentives have been instrumental in supporting our financing. And best of all, we’re getting people back to work in Hollywood.”

Produced by World of Wonder, the indie Untitled Drag Queen Movie is getting $1.7 million in incentives, which the CRC says will equal $4.4 million in wages for crew and cast and a total qualified spending of $6.6 million with vendors and others. First announced over a year ago, Untitled Daniels/Wang Project is expected to pay out $61.9 million in wages during production for a total qualified spending of $106.8 million in the state.

Always a booster for Hollywood, as every California governor should be, Gavin Newsom took some time away from running the state and recording his already infamous This Is Gavin Newsom podcast to offer some sobering thoughts this morning.

“Everyone knows that California is the entertainment capital of the world, but that hasn’t stopped others from trying to replicate what’s been built in Hollywood through decades of innovation and hard work,” Newsom said Wednesday. “Today’s awards are vital to keeping production here in the Golden State – especially after COVID-19, the dual strikes and devastating wildfires – generating thousands of good-paying jobs in the process and supporting the local businesses that rely on a thriving film and television industry.”

As the governor noted, things are not all greenlights and parking spaces in California right now when it comes to production.

While word on the street is that things are picking up after several years of slim pickins’, the reality is tax incentives-rich jurisdictions like New York and Georgia domestically and B.C. in Canada and the UK internationally continue to gain and retain a lot of industry projects, jobs and tax revenue. To that end, the term-limited Newsom last fall, as Deadline exclusively reported, moved to overhaul California’s tax credits program for the first time significantly in a decade and more than double the incentive to $750 million.

That initiative is currently making its way through the budgetary and legislative process in Sacramento to very likely become official for the next fiscal year.

In the meantime, the now completed next round of small screen tax credit applications with the CRC will be unveiled towards the end of March and then, with applications being taken from March 31 to April 2, another round again in early May. For feature films, the upcoming application period starts from April 21-23, with approval notices going out on June 2.

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