Prime Video‘s Mr. & Mrs. Smith is moving to the west coast for Season 2 production.
The second season will be filmed in Los Angeles County, sources tell Deadline, with exact production details still being sorted.
Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed the series would be relocating to California on Wednesday while touting the recently approved $750M in funding for the state’s Film & TV Tax Credit Program. Season 1 of Mr. and Mrs. Smith was primarily filmed in New York with a few locations in Italy, including Lake Como and the Italian Dolomites.
Though the series was granted an incentive within the last three cycles, it is not clearly listed on the California Film Commission‘s list of approved projects. Sometimes, high-profile productions are listed under different, more discreet names.
Just last week, the commission approved 48 new films for $96M in tax credits.
The state’s production community has been sounding the alarm on runaway production for years. Calls for action reached a fever pitch earlier this year in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles fires, which were preceded by a tough few years for the industry from the coronavirus-related production shut downs to the 2023 dual strikes.
California is also competing with other states like New York, which just allocated even more money to its own tax credit program, as well as international territories whose incentives have lured production away from the Golden State.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith‘s relocation is seemingly a win for Newsom and the California film and television industry, because it signals that big budget productions would be interested in shooting in the state with the right incentives in place. It joins Prime Video’s Fallout as two of the highest profile series to move production back to California recently.
While production in California has become more scarce, there is a promising slate of television productions cropping up across the state as of late, including HBO Max’s The Pitt, Hulu’s Paradise, and CBS’ NCIS: Origins.
Created by Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane, Season 1 of Mr. and Mrs. Smith followed two lonely strangers (Glover, Maya Erskine) who have to pose as a married couple as they both begin new careers as spies, taking on new aliases, Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. Now hitched, John and Jane navigate a high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone. Their complex cover story becomes even more complicated when they catch real feelings for each other. What’s riskier: espionage or marriage?
Sloane returns as executive producer and showrunner for Season 2; Glover is back as executive producer. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is produced by New Regency and Amazon MGM Studios.
