Japan is continuing its overseas project incentive program, which has supported projects like The smashing machineand enriches the offer for 2026.
The Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO) and the Japan Film Commission announced that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) would update the program, including introducing multi-year subsidies.
Productions will benefit from greater flexibility in reporting their expenses, relaxing the previously rigid timeline system. Under the previous system, a year’s production could only deduct expenses incurred during the Japanese fiscal year. The new one allows costs to be spread over two years.
METI noted that previously, a one-year project in the current fiscal year had to run from March 27, 2025 to January 31, 2026 to qualify.
The new look is scheduled to launch in late spring 2026, according to the Japan Film Commission. Advice regarding applications will follow at a later date.
Since its launch in 2023, the program has supported 18 projects – including helping Dwayne Johnson’s turn as UFC’s Mark Kerr in The smashing machine. Filming of the picture, which won director Benny Safdie the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, took place in Japan.
Others backed include the American-Japanese co-pro starring Brendan Fraser Family Rentalwhich tells the story of an American actor in Japan who joins a “family rental agency”, and season 2 of the French-Japanese thriller series from Apple TV. Drops of Godwhich is set in the world of fine wine and stars Fleur Geffrier and Tomohisa Yamashita as rivals competing to inherit a vast wine collection.
METI manages the program, with VIPO as operator and the Japan Film Commission as coordinator.
