Hollywood Film Production Plummets as Studios Flee California, Thousands of Jobs Lost

Hollywood production is plummeting as films flee California for cheaper locations, with on-location filming in Los Angeles down 22% this year. And that’s off an abysmal 2024. Los Angeles film and TV production fell 19.7% to just 183 projects in 2023. Thousands of jobs at risk in Hollywood as studios pivot production elsewhere.

As their dear leader once said, ‘learn to code.’

“The cerebral MATRIX film series appears to eerily personify how Hollywood and its multitude of ideological participants got out of their own glamor and glimmer award-winning lane – of churning out rich, highly profitable product, recognized globally; and then switched gears onto a perpetual socio-political freeway, they have no clue how to drive on, nor do the doomed want one, and from which there is no exit ramp, only a fatal brick wall. FAFO is a perfect acronym to describe the unmitigated arrogance and ignorance of the (New York/)LA woke; now pleading victimhood, on deaf ears.
Billy Wilder’s lushest imaginary playground is officially dead. Sad, when you look back most fondly.” (Victor Redlick)

The left didn’t just kill the golden goose, they butchered it.

Hollywood At Risk of Becoming the “Next Detroit Auto.” L.A. Production Insiders Voice Alarm

As a new tally shows plummeting shoot days in Los Angeles, organizers gathered to strategize on ways to get postproduction and music incentives included in California’s bill to boost the industry.

By Borys Kit, Katie Kilkenny, Hollywood Reporter, April 15, 2025:

The specter of Los Angeles becoming another Detroit, a city built on a specific industry that became a shell of its former self when that business moved out, loomed over a compelling film and TV industry town hall that tackled not only the calamitous drop in production in Hollywood and California, but also the fight to get the state to increase its entertainment production tax incentive.

The event on Monday night drilled down into a later stage of the entertainment production pipeline that is also currently in crisis: scoring and postproduction.

“This is not hyperbole to say that if we don’t act, the California film and TV industry will become the next Detroit auto,” said Noelle Stehman, a member of the “Stay in LA” campaign who spoke at the event.

The push for a proposed increase in tax incentives is hitting a critical phase in the legislative process, and California State Senator Ben Allen and State Assemblyman Rick Zbur were on hand to make an effort to get the necessary votes in. One major hurdle is politicians who see the incentives as a corporate giveaway to movie studios and media companies. That is poppycock to Allen.

[…]

FilmLA released its latest on-location production data showing that shoot days in the first quarter of 2025 had declined 22 percent compared with the same period the year prior.

“These jobs haven’t vanished, they’ve moved,” intoned ProdPro CEO Alex LoVerde, pointing out that the United States has seen a decrease in production of 26 percent since 2022. One beneficiary has been Australia, which has seen a gain of 14 percent.