Can Mamdani Lure Big Blockbusters Back to NYC? 

NYC film and TV production has returned in 2026, but Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s MOME commissioner Rafael Espinal's task to convince the biggest films to return won’t be as easy. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani oversees approximately 285,000 full-time city employees across more than 50 agencies, including the NYPD, FDNY, and the Departments of Education, Buildings, and Transportation. They are the city’s lifeblood and usually the most direct way a new mayor can steer City Hall toward his priorities.

However, Mamdani wasted no time putting his stamp on the relatively small Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), which is tasked with comparatively mundane administrative duties of issuing shooting permits to film and TV productions. By the end of January, Mamdani named close political ally Rafael Espinal — a former State Assemblyman and City Council Member — as MOME commissioner, and by the end of February, Espinal hit the ground running.

In just four months, Espinal secured face time with most key NYC production stakeholders. It was a signal to Hollywood that the city was open for business in a way it hadn’t been since Mayor Bloomberg (2002-2013).

“Over the years, there hasn’t been strong enough representation within government to support the needs of the industry in order to bring in more production to the city, and continue employing the workforce that depended on those jobs,” said Espinal.

In a lengthy interview with IndieWire, Espinal answered detailed, logistical questions that pushed beyond “Made in NY” slogans, initiatives, and talking points.

The interview started late; the commissioner was held up on a call with a production that needed help with its helicopter permit. NYC production sources tell IndieWire they’ve been baffled to find the new commissioner on similar calls about granular issues, like, How long can we close down traffic at a major intersection? How do we navigate increased drone restrictions during the World Cup?

MOME is staffed with dozens of career employees well-versed in these logistics in a way a new political appointee could never be. And Espinal acknowledged that their boss, Deputy Commissioner Kwame Amoaku, runs point in deciding how and if they can untangle the trickiest of situations. So why is the new commissioner on these calls having to navigate red tape?

Espinal compared Amoaku and himself to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, teammates with complementary skill sets: “ I bring the strong political background and the strong political relationships needed to help facilitate certain things that were impossible in years past.” In other words, he wants to know in real time whether the current friction a production is facing could be eased by Espinal calling someone at City Hall.

That’s why MOME was created. In the 2000s, Bloomberg consolidated the various agencies into a one-stop shop for navigating city government. He installed Katherine Olivier, who then headed Bloomberg Television and Radio, to run the agency as a turnkey business. MOME treated productions as clients who needed frictionless, excellent customer service to become repeat customers.

Under Mayor Bill de Blasio (2014-2021), there was a significant rollback of that permitting approach amid pushback over how film and TV production shoots affected neighborhoods. Restrictions for larger productions shooting on the streets increased steadily. It became dire coming out of the COVID lockdown as MOME faced the overwhelming task of permitting thousands of restaurants and bars’ outdoor seating expansions.

During the 2021 Democratic primaries to decide who would replace de Blasio, the unions demanded an audience with the candidates to sound the alarm: The next mayor will inherit a crisis. Massive action shoots like “I Am Legend” were now impossible, and Hollywood only saw NYC as a place to shoot if the bulk of production was on a soundstage.

MOME stabilized under Mayor Eric Adams (2022-2025), in part due to heavy lobbying and campaign contributions from the NYC film world. And as IndieWire reported last week, NY Governor Kathy Hochul’s new tax incentive has made NYC competitive once again, leading to a sharp increase in the volume of NYC film and productions in 2026 after a nearly six-year downturn.

As any NYC crew, producer, or vendor will tell you, the biggest remaining hurdle for NYC production is luring tentpole movies. For the mayor, who is the son of arthouse director Mira Nair, and his commissioner, who once dreamed of being an indie filmmaker, that’s become one of MOME’s top priorities.

“We’ve lost a lot of that to the UK,” said Espinal. “Trust me, when I see photos of Spider-Man swinging through somewhere in downtown London, or wherever they are, it stings, because that is New York’s hometown hero, and that should be happening here in our streets.”

In his first week on the job, Espinal faced an immediate test: “A Quiet Place Part III” wanted to close the Manhattan Bridge to stage a chaotic opening action sequence extending from the bridge into Chinatown.

“There was a lot of tension in the room. There was a lot of nervousness about what this could mean for traffic and for pedestrian flow,” said Espinal. “It was a defining moment because I had to make it clear that approving this production for this one day is not just about creating this one scene for this one film. It signaled to the world that New York City’s open for production, that New York City is open to creating big scenes like we used to see back in the ’90s and early 2000s.”

Like his boss, Espinal is a great communicator, and “A Quiet Place” gave him the perfect narrative and visuals. MOME featured director John Krasinski in a video about how it’s never been easier to shoot in New York City, which played before every Tribeca Film Festival screening earlier this month.

Closing the Manhattan Bridge, diverting traffic, and managing the safety of staging a zombie apocalypse downtown required the cooperation and manpower of multiple agencies with their own sets of pressing priorities and responsibilities. Pulling that together for one weekend in May does not make it repeatable — unless Espinal continues to pick up the phone and push through more “Quiet Place”-like shoots as a mayoral priority.

That’s the question we put to the new commissioner: Is Mamdani willing to put enough weight behind this that other agencies will make supporting film and TV production a priority? The new commissioner gave a definitive “yes,” and offered a glimpse of what’s been happening behind the scenes.

In April, Espinal convened an unprecedented City Hall meeting that brought major studio and production heads in the same room with relevant city agencies. Producers and studios were invited to air their grievances and speak candidly and specifically about the problems they’re facing on the ground, and, in turn, were promised by the Mamdani’s powerful deputies that their concerns would be addressed.

“We had the deputy mayor of operations [Julie Kerson], the deputy mayor of economic justice [Julie Su] in the room,” said Espinal. “All the agencies received a clear signal that this is going to be a priority for this administration. In that meeting, the deputy mayor clearly signaled that my office and I are fully empowered to work across all agencies to address those issues in real time.”

It was a clear signal to studios and producers: Hollywood now had their man in the Mayor’s office. Espinal explicitly told IndieWire that he wants the film and TV gatekeepers to have a direct connection to him to address potential pain points when deciding where to shoot.

“We’re currently working with the Mayor’s office on drafting a strong memo to every agency, clearly outlining their responsibility to work with our office to help streamline the issues productions run into  when filming in New York,” said Espinal.

That memo is a step toward establishing what Espinal is calling “The Playbook,” setting up the Mamdani-backed guidelines to establish a “frictionless dialogue” between the MOME and powerful city agencies.

“I can honestly say that the commissioners in all of these departments, especially the commissioners there now, totally value and totally feel the need to play a supportive role in ensuring productions aren’t impacted,” said Espinal.

Those in NYC production world are skeptical. They’ve tangled with the big agencies, and wonder aloud if what happened with “A Quiet Place” was more of a PR stunt than a sustainable model going forward. Others find it incongruous that the mayor, who has made affordability for working-class New Yorkers his number-one priority, will bend over backward for large corporations making Marvel-like movies.

To those doubters, Espinal said they are underestimating “what the importance of supporting these productions means for the city’s workforce and the city’s overall economy,” noting there were 1,100 people on the street [for “A Quiet Place”] that were employed by Paramount for weeks leading up to the Manhattan Bridge shoot.

“We have a responsibility to also inform the greater city about the impact that the decline of production has been having on the workforce and on the city as a whole, while also educating them on the positives that are going to come out if we start,” he said. “Because it goes beyond the crew, and it goes beyond the production, it also lends to tourism, it lends to the small businesses, and the benefit on the back end when people are visiting the city to go take photos on the street and block where they saw their favorite characters.”