Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire is coming to New Mexico -- for at least 10 episodes, anyway.

The New Mexico Film Office announced Monday that the A&E cable television network's new series Longmire will start production of an initial season of 10 shows in New Mexico in March.

The contemporary Western series, based on Craig Johnson's novels about a county sheriff trying to put his life and career back on track after the death of his wife, will mainly shoot in Northern New Mexico and will use the Greer Garson Studios on the Santa Fe University of Art and Design campus, Nick Maniatis, director of the Film Office, said Monday.

"It's great to have another TV series shooting here," he said.

The pilot for the series -- starring Australian actor Robert Taylor, perhaps best known for his role in The Matrix, as Longmire, Lou Diamond Phillips as his friend Henry Standing Bear, and Katee Sackhoff as Longmire's straight-shooting, profanity-spouting deputy -- filmed in the state last year. The series is due to broadcast this summer.

‘I’m pretty happy with the selection of New Mexico since my grandparents used to live in Hobbs, so I kind of look at it as my ‘second home’ state,' said Johnson via email. 'In the entire series of books, my Sheriff often laments the cold in Wyoming and threatens to move to New Mexico—so I guess, in a way, he finally got his wish.’

Johnson's first Longmire mystery book was 2004's The Cold Dish. Other titles in the series include Kindness Goes Unpunished and Hell is Empty. The eighth book in the series, As the Crow Flies, is due out this spring.

Coming on the heels of the news that Walt Disney Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are shooting a new film version of The Lone Ranger in New Mexico (with Armie Hammer as the title character and Johnny Depp as Tonto), Monday's announcement suggests that the film industry might be getting a jump-start after a slow, uncertain 2011.

Though filmmakers have come to New Mexico to shoot film projects since about 1900, the business boomed under the guidance of former Gov. Bill Richardson, who made filmmaking a cornerstone of his economic-development efforts nearly 10 years ago by signing a number of film incentives into law to attract production companies.

Since then, several high-profile Westerns have been shot here, including No Country For Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma and the recent remake of True Grit. Last year, the TNT cable network shot the pilot for the proposed Western series Tin Star (aka Gateway) in New Mexico.

Just two years ago, Variety magazine named New Mexico the No. 3 place to make movies among the 50 states, but only one big-budget picture -- the $200 million production The Avengers -- shot in New Mexico last year.

Some in the industry say that is because Gov. Susana Martinez urged state lawmakers to revamp the state's film-incentive program in 2011, putting a $50 million cap on what the state will pay out in a single year to qualifying productions.

Meanwhile, two longtime television series anchored in Albuquerque, Breaking Bad and In Plain Sight, are slated to end this spring after completing their final seasons.

The film office said Longmire will employ at least 130 New Mexico crew members and more than 160 principal and background performers. The state's film-crew base is estimated at 1,000 strong.

Since early January (at least) online media outlets and bloggers reported that Longmire would shoot in this state, but the Film Office only confirmed the news Monday.

Maniatis said a number of production companies are displaying interest in shooting projects in the state.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Jose, and state Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, have introduced a bill to repeal the current tax-credit cap in an effort to encourage more business. However, Gov. Susana Martinez said last week that she would veto any such bill that makes it to her desk.

And Rep. Dennis Kintigh, a Roswell Republican and longtime critic of the film-incentive program, has introduced yet another bill to eliminate the tax credit altogether.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.