NJ Film Commission Expands Film Ready Communities to 58

Fifteen more New Jersey municipalities have earned Film Ready Community certification, the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission announced March 11, bringing the statewide total to 58 certified communities prepared to host professional film and television production.

The new additions are Edison, Fanwood, Garwood, Hamilton, Hanover, Highland Park, Hightstown, Lambertville, New Brunswick, Newton, Oceanport, Phillipsburg, Randolph, Robbinsville, and Shrewsbury. They join two previous cohorts certified in March 2024 and August 2025.

The Film Ready New Jersey program trains municipal officials, permitting staff, and public safety personnel on what it actually takes to host a film crew. That means ordinances, location permits, traffic and crowd management, and the basics of how productions operate on the ground. For communities that have never dealt with a location scout showing up at Town Hall asking about parking restrictions for a 40-person crew, the program provides a practical foundation.

New Jersey Economic Development Authority CEO Evan Weiss credited the state’s geographic range as a competitive asset. The Garden State offers producers everything from dense urban blocks and walkable downtowns to open farmland and mountain terrain, a variety that lets New Jersey compete for projects that might otherwise scatter across multiple states.

“The newest cohort of Film Ready Communities will be prepared for the industry’s continued growth, which will create jobs for residents, support small businesses, and drive meaningful economic growth in municipalities across the Garden State,” Weiss said.

NJMPTVC Executive Director Jon Crowley framed the program as a statewide infrastructure play. Production activity in New Jersey has been setting records, he said, and local governments need to keep pace with the industry’s demands before producers come calling, not after.

“The Film Ready Program establishes statewide consistency and provides expert guidance on everything from permitting to public safety management, strengthening the state’s industry leadership as more producers choose the Garden State for their next big production,” Crowley said.

The economic argument for certification is concrete. When a production sets up in a town, it books hotels, fills restaurants, hires local vendors, and uses municipal services. Small businesses along a closed-off main street can see real foot traffic from crew members and visitors during production weeks. Communities that have a clear permitting process and trained staff are more likely to land those opportunities because productions work on tight schedules and cannot afford bureaucratic friction.

The five-step certification process covers economic impact education, ordinance and permitting review, public safety planning, small business outreach, and marketing support. Film Ready Workshops bring in industry professionals alongside local mayors and film commission staff. The goal is to produce officials who understand a production’s needs rather than learning on the fly when a location manager needs an answer in 24 hours.

The geographic spread of this latest cohort is notable. It includes dense, transit-connected cities like New Brunswick and Edison alongside smaller boroughs like Fanwood, Garwood, and Highland Park. Rural and semi-rural communities such as Phillipsburg and Newton are also in the mix. That range matters because the types of productions New Jersey attracts are not uniform. A streaming drama might need a gritty urban block in one scene and a quiet Victorian main street in the next.

New Jersey’s film and television sector has grown significantly in recent years, driven partly by the state’s competitive tax incentive program and partly by the sheer volume of production that has shifted away from California. New York remains the dominant East Coast hub, but New Jersey has carved out a meaningful position as both a production site and a logistics base.

For communities on the certified list, the practical next step is visibility. Film Ready status means the commission can actively market those towns to producers and location scouts who are searching for their next shoot. A municipality that has done the work to understand the industry’s needs, and can demonstrate that with a certification, starts conversations from a stronger position than one that has to build that knowledge from scratch mid-negotiation.

Fifty-eight communities across New Jersey now hold that designation. The commission has not announced a timeline for the next cohort.