The mass departure of entertainment productions from California is accelerating—and liberal leadership under Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom is doing little to stop the bleeding.
For more than a decade, productions have steadily left California, fleeing the state’s crushing taxes, union-driven labor costs, and increasingly hostile business environment. As the article reports, “film and television production in Los Angeles is down by more than one-third over the past 10 years,” according to FilmLA data. And the recent wildfires have only made the situation worse.
Other U.S. locations like Las Vegas, Chicago, Georgia, and New Mexico are reaping the benefits, not to mention international hubs such as Australia, Hungary, and Ireland. Actor Rob Lowe, who moved his game show The Floor from L.A. to Dublin, didn’t mince words: “It is cheaper to bring a hundred American people to Ireland than to walk across the lot at Fox, right past the soundstages and do it there.” He added bluntly, “It’s criminal what California and LA have let happen. It’s criminal. Everybody should be fired.”
Producer Amy Baer echoed the frustration, saying she wanted to bring a film back to L.A. from Canada, but after doing the math, found it “impossible” to meet her $10 million budget in California. “The idea was, ‘Can we take a run at keeping this in Los Angeles?’ And the answer was no,” Baer said. “We’ve reached a tipping point where we run the risk of losing the ability to make movies here for good.”
According to insiders, L.A. no longer ranks among the top filming locations for the entertainment industry. The city is now sixth behind Toronto, Britain, Vancouver, Central Europe, and Australia. The reason? As the article reveals, “In Hungary, it costs a production $59,000 for a team of seven [grips] for a 30-day shoot. By comparison, in L.A. it costs $53,000 for just one grip for that same shooting schedule.”
Even as productions and jobs vanish—18,000 full-time film jobs lost in the past three years alone—Gov. Newsom’s response has been tepid at best. Despite floating some incentives, they’ve been too weak to retain or attract major productions. Meanwhile, “many Democrats in the state legislature insist that the restrictions that have been loaded onto the industry are good things,” and instead look to the federal government to step in—without offering a real solution.
