Hollywood East? Movie Studio Planned in Egg Harbor City, NJ

Is Egg Harbor City destined to become a movie-making hotspot on the East Coast?

It is way too early to say, but the town has received a $1 million grant for site work on a proposed motion picture studio.

Earlier this month, Egg Harbor City was awarded a grant for over a million dollars to begin infrastructure improvements on an 80-acre site at 1000 Hamberg Road for development by Atlantic Picture Motion Studios.

The idea is to turn the location into a 185,000-square-foot motion picture and media sound stage and entertainment production support space.

The grant money will be used for road widening, curb cuts, sidewalk improvement, street lighting, and drainage improvements.

Egg Harbor City was one of five New Jersey towns awarded money from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority in the Film and Digital Media Studio Infrastructure Program.

The grants — which total $9.5 million — are the latest in a wave of public funding that Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has sunk into the state’s film and television industry since the approval of a popular tax credit program in 2018.

Carteret, Jersey City, and East Brunswick also received grants.

In 2023, Atlantic City took advantage of grant funding to sign a deal with the film and production group ACX1, to use a building on the former Playground Pier for multiple movie sets and a live entertainment venue.

All told, the state has approved $723 million since 2018 in tax subsidies toward film, television, and “digital media” productions, including support for Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story," Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead," filmed in Atlantic City, as well as the "Sopranos" prequel "The Many Saints of Newark."

According to his website, Atlantic Motion Picture Studios is the creative company behind filmmaker Jonathon Sachar, who has developed films such as the comedy horror flick Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, Cross, and Rites of Passage.