‘A Whole New Hub’: Movie Stars Stump For Filming Deep In The Heart Of Texas

Hollywood is on fire, literally and figuratively.

Dueling strikes shut the industry down in 2023 and it hasn’t fully bounced back. The pandemic chased viewers to the comfort of their couches, pummeling the theatrical experience. YouTube creators are luring eyeballs away from network TV at a fraction of the price point, as are social media platforms and video games.

There’s no better time for a Hollywood Plan B. Could that involve the Lone Star State?

Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey sure think so.

The “True Detective” alums joined forces for a new video campaign tied to Texas-based filmmaking. They’re playing their iconic characters from the HBO series, but this isn’t fiction.

Texas stories deserve a Texas backdrop. That’s why I teamed up with Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Renée Zellweger for True to Texas. It’s time to bring film and TV productions home! pic.twitter.com/iMpRMRx2Hj

— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) January 29, 2025

It’s a bona fide plea for more Texas movie making. The Oscar-winning actor from “Dallas Buyers Club” starts the pitch.

“Hollywood is a flat circle … this industry is like somebody’s memory of an industry, and the memory’s fading. I’m talking about a whole new hub for film and television. A renaissance. A rebirth.”

“A small fraction of Texas budget surplus to turn this state into the new Hollywood,” Harrelson adds.

“If all these other states are going to offer an incentive, then that’s where we’re going to keep going. I just wish we could bring some of these productions home to Texas.” So says fellow Oscar winner Renée Zellweger.

The spot also features fellow Hollywood heavyweights like Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Quaid.

Tom Cooper/Getty Images

This isn’t happening in a vacuum.

California has been shedding TV and film projects for some time. States like Georgia and New Mexico teem with new projects, generated in large part by tax-friendly policies and rebates.

That doesn’t factor in the high price of living in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s struggling state. Have you filled up a car in California these days?

The timing couldn’t be better on the cultural front. Entertainment production no longer caters to the coasts. Joe Rogan moved the comedy epicenter from New York City to Austin, Texas, with his Comedy Mothership club and its unwoke ethos.

Mark Sutton/Getty Images

Stand-up superstars like Tom Segura, Ron White, Tony Hinchcliffe now call Austin home. Others, like Tyler Fischer and Roseanne Barr, also decamped to the state, at least part time.

To many, Hollywood is no longer exclusively thought of as the sole movie-making hub. Other cities and states are leaning into that new normal.

Nashville productions are on the rise, from Daily Wire exclusives to projects via Universal Music Group Nashville. The latter just created a new production arm with plans to create film and TV projects. Oscar winners Jamie Lee Curtis and Nicole Kidman are shooting Amazon Prime’s “Scarpetta,” an episode drama in Nashville through February.

Superstar Mark Wahlberg wants to make Las Vegas “Hollywood East.” The “Flight Risk” star hopes to spearhead a $1.8 billion Sony studio in the state to compete with Hollywood.

“I think ultimately that would be the goal. They all used to make movies right there in LA and people don’t do it anymore,” Wahlberg said.

He’ll have some company.

Warner Bros. Discovery also has its eye on Las Vegas. Warner Bros. Studios Nevada, a plan dependent on the state’s tax credit structure, would bring more filmmaking to the state.

So why not Texas? 

The state offers endless vistas worthy of a cinematic closeup. Small Town USA? Check! Big, bustling urban centers like Dallas? Covered. Texas’s red-state policies mean cost-of-living issues won’t upend productions, and it’s far less dysfunctional than the Golden State.

And top-tier stars are singing the state’s praises in a very public forum. When a Dennis Quaid, a star for nearly 50 years, suggests a state needs a close-up, people should listen.

Previously, Owen Wilson and Glen Powell joined with McConaughey and Thornton to buoy Texas filmmaking with a similar 2023 video.

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Paramount+

The infrastructure is in place, too. The state approved a $200 million grant last year, that runs through August, to entice more projects. That got Taylor Sheridan’s attention.

The biggest name in episodic TV chose Texas for both his home and a sprawling real estate enterprise planning to host film and TV productions down the short road. His latest smash, Paramount+’s “Landman,” filmed in Fort Worth, Texas.

Sheridan made a personal pitch for Texas last fall before the state’s Senate Finance Committee.

“We desperately need the employees. I would much, much, much rather hire a Texas local than fly in somebody from another state,” Sheridan said.

Some Texas-based Republicans have split feelings about the Hollywood influx. Newsweek reports several officials recoiled at the thought of Hollywood’s progressive values inundating the state.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller put the brakes on the plan via X. He’s all for Texas-based productions but opposes tax rebates to make it possible.

Hollywood is dying. Productions can’t get out of California fast enough. Texas will benefit without subsidizing the folks that brought us woke, anti-Christian bigotry, socialism, transgenderism, etc.

Hollywood diehards may resist the Texas two-step. Loyalists could prefer to bring production back to La La Land, especially to help those impacted by the wildfires. Others may rebuke red-state values infecting their progressive industry.

Pragmatism may rule the day. If major stars like Quaid, McConaughey and Zellweger want more Texas-based shoots, and the costs aren’t prohibitive, we may be hearing, “Action!” more and more in the Lone Star State.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.