Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
a day ago
- The #StayInLA campaign launched after the 2023 labor strikes and 2025 wildfires, aiming to keep film production in Los Angeles and gaining over 20,000 signatures.
- Historically, Hollywood centralized in LA from the 1910s due to sunshine, cheap land, and avoidance of Edison's patents, but blockbusters and tax incentives drove production overseas.
- Major production hubs like London, Atlanta, and Vancouver offer substantial tax credits, making them attractive for big-budget films, especially those set in generic locations or space.
- The gap between where stories are set and where they are filmed has widened, with locations often chosen for financial reasons rather than narrative authenticity.
- Cost disease explains rising costs in labor-intensive industries like filmmaking, leading to smaller crews, outsourcing, and eventual use of AI to replace human labor.
- Many Hollywood interns are underutilized, and studio backlots are increasingly empty, symbolizing the shift of physical production away from Los Angeles.