Guy Pearce is set to star in “The Teller,” a thriller set in San Francisco but is planned to shoot mostly in Northern Ireland in late 2026.
Saban Films
Even after San Francisco dramatically expanded its film tax rebate program this year, one of the city’s next major productions appears poised to shoot largely elsewhere.
The San Francisco-set “The Teller,” a thriller to star Oscar nominees Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Guy Pearce (“The Brutalist”) and Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham (“Ted Lasso”), is expected to begin filming later this year, with Northern Ireland to stand in for the city by the Bay.
The news arrives just months after Mayor Daniel Lurie backed an overhaul of San Francisco’s tax rebate program to attract new filming in the city.
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“The Teller” is still trying to attract buyers for marketing and distribution, with the project currently being shopped at the Cannes Film Festival in France, which begins Tuesday, May 12, and runs through May 23.
Altitude, a U.K.-based company, is handling international sales, according to Deadline. The fact that it is a U.K.-Irish co-production suggests that the project is getting strong financial incentives to shoot in Northern Ireland, with post-production to be completed in the Republic of Ireland.
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But San Francisco Film Commissioner Manijeh Fata told the Chronicle she hopes the production will consider filming as many days in the city as possible for authenticity’s sake.
“Because the film is set in San Francisco, we hope the production chooses to film here,” Fata said. “We would absolutely welcome them and work closely with the team to help make filming in the city as smooth and successful as possible.”
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Mayor Daniel Lurie sits surrounded by officials after signing a bill expanding the city’s two-decade-old film rebate program on Feb. 11, 2026, at City Hall in San Francisco.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
In February, Lurie signed legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors called the Scene in San Francisco incentive. It is a sweeping update of a rebate program launched two decades ago that was designed to make it more cost-effective for productions to film in a city that had become prohibitively expensive for both Hollywood and independent projects.
Among the various perks — a 10% rebate on qualified local spending, a 20% rebate on qualified spending above $1 million and a 100% rebate on city fees up to $1 million — is a mere five-day minimum shoot to qualify.
As soon as the bill was signed into law, Morgan Sackett, producer of the San Francisco-set Netflix comedy series “A Man on the Inside,” announced that Season 3 of the series would be entirely shot in the city. Most of the first two seasons were shot in Los Angeles.
“I believe this new film incentive will go a long way to restoring San Francisco as a filmmakers’ destination,” Sackett said at the bill-signing ceremony at City Hall on Feb. 11.
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The new incentives could greatly benefit a project such as “The Teller.” The film is expected to star Hsu as Violet, “an overlooked bank teller whose life takes a turn when a rogue FBI agent manipulates her into robbing her own bank,” according to Deadline, “but the heist is just the opening move in a much bigger con.”
Stephanie Hsu, shown at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in 2023 ahead of a CAAMFest screening of “Joy Ride,” has been cast in the title role in “The Teller.”
Justin Katigbak/Special to The Chronicle
Movies and television shows set in San Francisco used to be entirely filmed in the city, including “Bullitt” (1968), the “Dirty Harry” movies, “The Streets of San Francisco” (1972-77), “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993) and “Nash Bridges” (1996-2001). But as filming costs, from rising permit fees to shrinking tax rebates, rose dramatically, projects turned to filming just a few days in San Francisco to get shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and iconic city views before shooting the bulk of production days elsewhere.
Examples include “Always Be My Maybe,” a rom-com co-produced, written and starring San Francisco native Ali Wong that was largely shot in Vancouver, and the recent “The Invite,” Olivia Wilde’s comedy-drama, which opened the 69th San Francisco International Film Festival last month and is due in theaters in June.
In the case of “The Invite,” however, its scenes are 95% set inside an apartment. All exteriors were shot in San Francisco, while indoor shots were filmed on a set in Los Angeles. Wilde’s film was also made before San Francisco’s tax rebate expansion was signed into law. The director and film’s star admitted that she largely relied on a Los Angeles tax credit for her movie.
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“But San Francisco is an incredible community for filmmakers,” Wilde told the Chronicle. “We had the best local crew, we had the most beautiful locations. We had an amazingly smooth time interacting with the people there, the police there. We were so well taken care of, and the movie is so much better because we opened with these beautiful shots of San Francisco.”
The producers of “The Teller” have not announced whether they plan to film in the city.