Japan wants international productions to choose its locations, but the industry says its newest incentive is built around budgets many local projects never reach.
At an MPA seminar during the Tokyo International Film Festival, Tokyo Vice producer Alex Boden and Netflix’s APAC content and studio production affairs chief Debra Richards unpacked the IP360 scheme. IP360 replaced JLOX last year as part of Japan’s plan to grow content exports to $127BN by 2033 and attract more foreign shoots.
Tokyo Vice became the first international production in the wave to shoot after JLOX launched in 2022. Later projects such as Searchlight’s Rental Family, Apple TV+’s Drops of God and Neuromancer, and Sony Pictures Classics’ Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! followed, many hiring crew who had worked on Tokyo Vice.
The $5M floor excludes most Japanese films
Boden said the scheme’s minimum qualifying spend of about $5M (JPY800M) is the main problem. Most Japanese films are budgeted between $1.5M and $3M, so the threshold “excludes independent and lower-budget projects.” That pushes co-productions and smaller international jobs toward other countries.
The selection process also narrows the field too early. Only producers with high-budget credits are encouraged to apply, but Japan does not yet have enough of them. The skillset comes from doing international work, Boden argued, not from being screened out before the chance arrives.
Certainty beats the size of the cheque
Netflix’s Richards made the business case simply. “Certainty is very important,” she said. A lower incentive is fine as long as the criteria are clear and stable. Right now, producers can see which projects were funded, but the logic is “opaque.”
She also cautioned against making local and international shows compete for the same pot. The strongest production hubs, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Spain and the UK, support both under one umbrella.
Local crew are part of the payoff
Toho Tombo Pictures’ Georgina Pope, whose credits include Marty Supreme and The Smashing Machine, said international jobs build confidence among Japanese crew and expose them to software and workflows they would not otherwise use. MPA APAC Vice President Paul Muller added that Australia and Thailand show how consistent rules drive a “significant increase” in both local and international volume.
What Japan could change
- Lower the minimum spend threshold so $1.5M–$3M local films qualify.
- Move to automatic or simplified approvals instead of a panel decision.
- Keep criteria stable across multi-year windows, as Australia and Thailand have shown.
- Treat local and international productions as one pipeline, not rivals.
The signal for streaming and production executives is clear: incentives are a location decision. Japan landed shoots under the old JLOX rules, which offered up to a 50% cash rebate. The risk now is that the next wave scouts Japan and shoots elsewhere.
Source: Deadline
