By Alex Biese
MONMOUTH COUNTY – For more than 50 years, Bruce Springsteen and his music have been synonymous with working-class, blue-collar life in New Jersey. With that part of the Freehold native’s life story now coming to the big screen, it bears acknowledging that the production of the 20th Century Studios film was itself a boon for the local economy in the Garden State. The production of the hotly anticipated new biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” spent an estimated $41,832,221 during its 31 shooting days, or nearly $1.35 million daily, according to data provided to The Two River Times by the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission.
Filming in locations across the state, including Asbury Park, Freehold and Colts Neck, the production spent more than $2 million on location fees, more than half a million dollars on lodging, almost $80,000 in tolls, nearly $430,000 on food, over $1.7 million on extras, $1.8 million on set construction, $2.9 million on set dressing, $2.2 million on wardrobe and $65,000 on parking in Asbury Park.
“Productions, when they come here, they don’t come to New Jersey with everything they need to make a film in their back pocket,” said Jon Crowley, New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission executive director and Atlantic Highlands resident, in an interview with The Two River Times. “They don’t have paint and brushes and nuts and bolts to build sets, they’re not coming with lighting and with cameras, they’re not coming with the hotel rooms they’re going to stay in. So, all those things, all those businesses, suppliers, vendors, those are here in New Jersey. We have a really expanding infrastructure.”
Film and television productions spent upwards of $592 million in the state in 2023 and $837 million in 2024 – a figure that is on pace to be eclipsed in 2025.
“New Jersey is getting busier and busier in the entertainment industry,” said Crowley. “We’re getting more and more feature films and TV shows filmed here, which I love, because that means they’re coming into the state and they’re spending lots of money and they’re also putting a lot of folks to work. In 2023, 17,000 crew hires occurred. And last year, in 2024, we hit 30,000.” He also noted that projects increased as well, from approximately 35 in 2023 to 44 in 2024.
‘Nebraska’ By Way of New Jersey
“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” begins playing in area movie theaters Oct. 23. The film, from director Scott Cooper and based on the 2023 book “Deliver Me from Nowhere” by author Warren Zanes, is the saga of the creation of Springsteen’s now-iconic 1982 album “Nebraska,” which was recorded in a house in Colts Neck. It stars Jeremy Allen White of Hulu hit “The Bear” as Springsteen and Jeremy Strong of “Succession” fame as Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau.
Production crisscrossed the state to bring Springsteen’s story to the screen, with Newark standing in for New York City and Los Angeles, Montclair playing the Hollywood Hills, and the Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford filling in for both the Riverfront Arena in Cincinnati and the LA Sports Arena.
“I went onto the set, they were filming at the Meadowlands, it was supposed to double as the LA Sports Arena, and I grew up in Los Angeles,” Crowley said. “And I will tell you, it was the craziest thing, walking onto that set, the way they had dressed the stage and everything, I swear to you it was like I went back in time 40 years, and I felt like I was back at the LA Sports Arena. And they had 200, 300 extras all dressed up in the sort of T-shirts you would have bought in the ’80s out in the parking lot, and it was a time warp.”
The end product, all told, is a film that will be as distinctly Jersey as the life and music of the man who inspired it.
“I think it’s going to be a love letter to New Jersey with all of these locations from Freehold to Asbury and everywhere in between serving as the set, the backdrop for the Bruce Springsteen biopic,” said Crowley. “Which, by the way, the studio was originally looking at filming this in Pittsburgh for a variety of different reasons. And Springsteen himself was the one who said, ‘Yeah, no, no. If we’re going to be doing a movie about me, we’re going to be filming in New Jersey.’ ”
The article originally appeared in the October 23 – October 29, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
