Tokyo Vice Producer and Netflix Executive Call for Overhaul of Japan's Production Incentive
"Tokyo Vice" producer Alex Boden and Netflix production policy director Deb Richards have called for changes to the way Japan supports foreign productions that shoot there. They spoke at the Motion Picture Association's annual seminar at the Tokyo International Film Festival, as Variety reported.
A production incentive is a government rebate, paid back on money a production spends locally. Japan's current scheme, called IP360, offers 50% against Japanese spend. It grew out of a 2020 research programme that "Tokyo Vice" supported, then moved to the 2023 J-LOD incentive before reaching its present form. The minimum spend has now risen to JPY800 million, or $5.1 million.
Boden said most Japanese films cost between $1.5 million and $3 million. He also called for an automatic approval system to replace the panel-based process that currently picks which productions receive support. He pointed to "Silence," "Pachinko" and "Shogun" as projects set in Japan that scouted there but shot elsewhere.
Richards went further on the paperwork. She said Japan's incentive criteria are unclear and described the application process as opaque. For a studio deciding where to film, that kind of uncertainty can matter as much as the rebate rate itself.
Boden offered a model from abroad. He cited the United Kingdom's 0.5% ScreenSkills levy as a way of building training into an incentive. Australia takes a similar route. Its rules require an international production to spend at least AUD20 million, or $13.9 million, and to put 1% of its budget toward training. Since that training rule took effect in June 2023, more than AUD20 million has gone into Australian production training.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, known as METI, runs the international production incentive. It is moving from single-year to two-year financing, according to Variety.
Separately, a wider reorganisation is under way. Nakahara Hirohiko, director-general of the Cabinet Office's Intellectual Property Strategy Promotion Secretariat, said a task force on a new unified content body held its first meeting on October 22. The government aims to launch that body in 2027, bringing together support for the content industry from METI, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The longer-term goals are large. Japan aims to expand overseas sales of Japanese content to 20 trillion yen by 2033. It has also set an intensive support period covering 2026 to 2033 to push Japan-originated content abroad.
Boden and Richards are industry voices, not government decision-makers, so their proposals will rest with METI and the wider government. For now, the message from the festival is simple. Filmmakers want a clearer rulebook, a faster yes or no, and a way to keep Japan-set stories on Japanese soil.
