The Beam Went Up at Fort Monmouth — and Jersey’s Movie Future Got Real

There’s a moment in every construction project they call the “topping off,” when the last steel beam gets hoisted into place and somebody signs it before it goes up. It’s a small ceremony, a little superstitious, a little sentimental. Up at the old Fort Monmouth in Monmouth County last month, the beam that went up on Stages 3 and 4 wasn’t just steel. It was the skeleton of Netflix’s billion-dollar bet that the next great American movie town is going to be right here in New Jersey.

Let that sink in. A billion dollars. In a state people spent a century using as the punchline. The Garden State, the turnpike exits, the place you drive through to get to somewhere with a red carpet. And now Netflix is pouring a fortune into soundstages on ground that used to be an Army base, with the first stages due to come online in 2027. Growing up in Woodbury, the closest I got to “the industry” was arguing about Scorsese in the back of a pizza shop. My kids are going to grow up in a state where the industry has a zip code down the Parkway.

The whole board is filling up

This isn’t one shiny project, either — that’s the part that ought to get South Jersey’s attention. The whole board is filling up. New Jersey’s soundstage inventory is projected to triple by 2028, with Lionsgate, Netflix, and Paramount all planting flags. The trade folks have started saying out loud what sounded absurd a few years back: that Jersey could become the nation’s No. 3 production hub, behind only Los Angeles and Atlanta. Even the NJEDA’s been feeding the softer side of it, approving Cultural Arts Facilities expansion money for places like the Paper Mill Playhouse and the Rialto in Westfield. Big stages, small stages, the whole ecosystem.

A topped-off beam is a promise, not a premiere.Vinny Vinci

Now, I’ve been the guy in this column rolling my eyes at hype before, so let me keep one foot on the ground. Hollywood itself is in a slowdown — fewer projects, tighter budgets, everybody nervous. Tax incentives are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and incentives are a bet the state is making with real money that has to pay off in real jobs. A topped-off beam is a promise, not a premiere. Ask anyone who watched a “transformative” development stall out over the years and you’ll get an earful about counting chickens.

Why it matters south of the Driscoll Bridge

But here’s why I think this one is different, and why it matters south of the Driscoll Bridge even though the cameras are rolling up north. Production doesn’t stay put. It bleeds outward — to the electricians and carpenters who build the sets, the caterers, the lumber yards, the hotels, the diners, the kid from Gloucester County who takes a production-assistant gig and discovers a career nobody in his family knew existed. When a studio hub gets real in the northern half of the state, the crew base grows statewide, and South Jersey has the workforce and the locations to grab a piece of it. Our Main Streets have already doubled as backlots. Our shore towns already look like the third act of somebody’s screenplay.

So yeah, I’m allowing myself some optimism, which for a guy raised on “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” is saying something. The beam went up. The steel is real. And for the first time in my life, when somebody says “Hollywood East,” they’re not joking — they’re giving directions.

Based on reporting from Central Jersey, NJBIZ, ROI-NJ, Jersey Digs, and the NJEDA.