Matthew McConaughey leads campaign to bring more movies to Texas

HOUSTON — Matthew McConaughey has teamed up with other actors with Texas ties in a campaign to bring more films and television shows to the Lone Star State. 

Last week, the Texas Senate announced its budget includes $498 million to revamp the Texas Film Inventive.

Now, McConaughey and friends are urging the Texas Legislature to pass the budget a campaign called “True to Texas.” It includes a four-minute video featuring McConaughey and Woody Harrelson reprising their “True Detective” roles on a road trip to Texas. Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton and Renée Zellweger also appear.

“You have to wonder if this industry of ours is just chasing its own tail,” Harrelson, who was born in Midland and went to school in Houston, says as he drives down a highway with McConaughey riding shotgun.

“No, I don’t wonder. Restrictions. Regulations. Nickle and diming productions. Political lectures,” McConaughey replies. “Hollywood, it’s a flat circle, ‘Wood,’ round and round like a record with the sound off.”

McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde and graduated from the University of Texas, said he’s ready to “change the tune” by turning Texas into a new hub for film and television. 

The actors want the legislature to pass a bill that would add bigger and better incentives for the film industry, which they say would create thousands of Texas jobs and boost local economies.

RELATED: A mini Hollywood in Texas? This DFW city is building a 72-acre studio development

RELATED: Matthew McConaughey, Owen Wilson and others team up for Texas filmmaking incentives

“A small fraction of the Texas budget surplus could turn this state into the new Hollywood,” Harrelson says.

“But we’re not gonna call it Hollywood,” quipped Quaid, a Bellaire native, from the backseat. 

Then they get a call from Thornton, who was born in Arkansas but has lived in Texas, followed by Zellweger, who’s from Katy.

“Count me in, I’ve been hotel hopping in all these other states for way too long,” Zellweger says.

The actors point out that Texas is bigger than most countries with a larger variety of locations than any other state.

“We’ve got desserts, oceans, we’ve got forests, we’ve got rolling hills,” Quaid says.

He and other stars testified at a 2024 legislative hearing in Austin that featured clips of television shows filmed in Texas, including “Yellowstone” and “Friday Night Lights.”

They pointed out that Texas is losing millions of dollars to other states that offer better incentives for the industry.

“One of my great frustrations was that I wrote ‘Hell or High Water,’ and they filmed the darn thing in New Mexico,” “Yellowstone” writer and producer Taylor Sheridan testified last October. “My love story to Texas was shot west of where it should have been shot.”

A 17-year old program created under former Gov. Rick Perry attracts television, film, commercial, and video game production to Texas by offering grants, including the cost of hiring Texas workers and renting film space. Movie and television projects filmed in Texas receive a 5 to 20% rebate — but only until the program runs out of money each budget cycle.

The True to Texas campaign wants the program overhauled to make it more competitive with other states. 

“So what do you say, Texas Legislature? You don’t like what Hollywood’s been dishin’? Let’s take over the kitchen,” McConaughey says at the end of his video.