The Return of Jezebel James

Less than 2 years ago, Amy Sherman-Palladino was producing Gilmore Girls, a TV series set in a tiny Connecticut town, about 2 hours out of New York City. Like most television programs, Gilmore Girls was filmed in the Hollywood area, on a Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, CA.

Now Amy and her husband and fellow show-runner Dan Palladino are moving to New York, as Lauren Graham let on in a recent on-line chat. Part of a growing exodus from Hollywood, they are moving in order to produce their new project The Return of Jezebel James.

Backstage reports that more new TV shows than ever are being developed in New York, rather than in California. There are 5 ongoing shows currently filmed in the Manhattan area. And The Return of Jezebel James was only one of 10 pilots filmed there this year—more pilots than have ever before been filmed in New York. And it’s only one of the 7 of these that are actually coming to television next year.

Compared with a decade ago — when there was Law & Order and little else — New York is now a TV boomtown, and everyone in the industry, from actors to executives, is looking forward to the possibilities…

The weather has not changed in 20 years, but the increase in production facilities and the 15 percent tax rebate have mitigated logistical difficulties and the cost of U.S. talent. Technology has also bridged the geographical divide, allowing network and studio executives to view dailies online…

New York talent definitely appears to be part of the reason Jezebel James is to be filmed there. Both Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose are residents. In a recent interview on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Parker chatted about a house she recently bought in upstate New York, comparing it to California:

I’m not that much of a beach person. I like the woods. I’m a woodsy type. Yeah, the beach is kind of… I mean, it’s beautiful, but I get a little bored at the beach. I don’t lay out and get sun. It makes me bored…

I just got a country house upstate… I’ve been gardening. I have kale planted, and okra.

And in an interview with New York magazine, Lauren Ambrose implied that she might be unable to film elsewhere, asking, “To work where I live, isn’t that the whole idea?”

-TimK