Mamdani’s MOME pushes tentpole films back to NYC

After Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed Rafael Espinal as MOME commissioner, the city’s film-permitting office moved quickly—from helicopter-permit calls to a Manhattan Bridge test for “A Quiet Place Part III,” and an April City Hall meeting aimed at making big p

When the call finally came in for “A Quiet Place Part III,” the Manhattan Bridge wasn’t just a backdrop—it was a moving problem map. The production wanted to close the bridge to stage a chaotic opening action sequence, then extend that sequence into Chinatown.

Espinal, newly installed as commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), walked into a room filled with tension. He described nervousness about what it could mean for traffic and pedestrian flow, and he had to make the stakes clear to everyone in the chain.

“Approving this production for this one day is not just about creating this one scene for this one film,” Espinal said. “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.”

The moment came early in Espinal’s tenure. And it captured the thread Mamdani is pulling through his MOME operation: not just issuing permits, but helping New York win back the kind of large-scale, tentpole filmmaking that can reshape what studios decide to do next.

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—layers of government that. as he quickly learned. are usually the most direct lever a mayor has to move City Hall toward his priorities.

Within that larger machine. Mamdani moved fast on MOME. a smaller office tasked with issuing shooting permits for film and TV productions. By the end of January. he named close political ally Rafael Espinal—a former State Assemblyman and City Council Member—as MOME commissioner. By the end of February, Espinal was already hitting the ground running.

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

“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,” Espinal said.

His approach has included getting close to the granular friction of production logistics—some of it so specific that it has surprised people in the NYC production world. The interview about his plans began late. he said. because he was held up on a call with a production that needed help with its helicopter permit. NYC production sources have said they’ve been baffled to find the new commissioner on similar calls about narrow. practical questions—how long a production could close down traffic at a major intersection. and how to navigate increased drone restrictions during the World Cup.

MOME. after all. is staffed with dozens of career employees who are well-versed in those logistics in a way a political appointee could never replicate alone. Espinal acknowledged that his boss. Deputy Commissioner Kwame Amoaku. runs point on deciding how and if they can untangle the trickiest situations.

So why, then, was the commissioner showing up on the calls?

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 that framing, the point isn’t to replace the operational experts. It’s to be the bridge to the wider City Hall machinery when the operational system hits a wall.

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

Under Mayor Bill de Blasio (2014-2021). the permitting approach rolled back as restrictions for larger productions shooting on the streets increased steadily amid pushback about how film and TV production shoots affected neighborhoods. 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.

The pressure during the 2021 Democratic primaries was blunt: unions demanded an audience with candidates to warn that the next mayor would inherit a crisis. Massive action shoots like “I Am Legend” were now impossible. and Hollywood only viewed 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 the competitive picture shifted again after NY Governor Kathy Hochul’s new tax incentive made NYC competitive once more. driving a sharp increase in the volume of NYC film and productions in 2026 after a nearly six-year downturn.

Yet even with incentives and momentum, the biggest hurdle remained the same: luring tentpole movies.

For Mamdani—and for Espinal, who once dreamed of being an indie filmmaker—that became a core priority. Mamdani is the son of arthouse director Mira Nair.

“We’ve lost a lot of that to the UK,” Espinal said. “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.”

The question now is whether the high-touch approach that worked for “A Quiet Place Part III” can become repeatable, not just cinematic.

That’s where the political muscle comes in. After the initial test on the Manhattan Bridge. Espinal continued pushing for buy-in across agencies—culminating in an April City Hall meeting described as unprecedented. He convened major studio and production heads in the same room with relevant city agencies so producers and studios could air grievances candidly and specifically about problems they’re facing on the ground. In return, Mamdani’s powerful deputies promised that concerns would be addressed.

Espinal said the meeting included the deputy mayor of operations, Julie Kerson, and the deputy mayor of economic justice, Julie Su, and that all the agencies received a clear signal that this was a priority for the 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,” Espinal said.

That message, he said, was for Hollywood gatekeepers too: Espinal told IndieWire he wanted them to have a direct connection to him 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,” he said.

Espinal called the long-term plan “The Playbook,” aimed at establishing Mamdani-backed guidelines for a “frictionless dialogue” between 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,” Espinal said.

In the NYC production world, though, the reaction isn’t uniform. Some are skeptical. having tangled with big agencies before. and wondering aloud if “A Quiet Place” was more of a PR stunt than a sustainable model going forward. Others find it incongruous that a mayor who has made affordability for working-class New Yorkers his number-one priority would “bend over backward” for large corporations making Marvel-like movies.

Espinal’s response goes back to the workforce and the broader economy. He said the skeptics are underestimating what support for these productions means for the city.

He pointed to the size of the on-street workforce during the Manhattan Bridge shoot, saying there were 1,100 people on the street 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,” Espinal 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.”

Now. all of it hinges on the same thing that drove the very first test on the Manhattan Bridge: whether Mamdani will keep putting weight behind MOME’s push. so other agencies treat film and TV production as a shared priority—not a favor. not a one-off. and not something that only comes together when a tentpole is already on the calendar.

Zohran Mamdani Rafael Espinal MOME Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment Manhattan Bridge A Quiet Place Part III permits film production IndieWire Michael Jordan Scottie Pippen Katherine Olivier Bloomberg de Blasio Eric Adams Kathy Hochul Spider-Man