The Los Angeles film and television industry, coming off its second-weakest year on record, is expected to face more challenges as a result of ongoing wildfires that have displaced industry workers and threaten to stall local productions.
Overall film and television production in greater Los Angeles dropped 5.6% year over year in 2024, according to FilmLA, a nonprofit group that tracks the industry. Only 2020, when the global COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread disruptions, saw lower levels of filming for Hollywood.
The falloff comes at a time when the city and state are eager to breathe new life into a signature industry that has been struggling because of increased competition and the lingering effects of financial strain for studios and production companies caused by the 2023 actors' and writers' strikes.
Compounding the challenges, recent wildfires have ravaged the homes of many entertainment industry workers, threatening to cause some productions in high-risk zones to shut down and raising the specter of higher insurance premiums for future filming.
“This industry has been through a really tough couple of years, starting with COVID, going into the strikes, and now this,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said about the fires' impact on productions underway in Los Angeles during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call with investors this week. “It’s really important that we try not to delay anything and try to make sure that these jobs stay safe."
Even as overall production has slowed, development of billions of dollars of studio space is underway across Los Angeles, designed to tempt productions with space more conducive to modern methods of filmmaking than existing older facilities. And the industry hopes a doubling of the state film and television tax credit program will encourage studios like Netflix to keep as many productions as possible local and draw back some that have moved to Georgia, New Mexico, New York and other states and countries.
Lives impacted
While none of the areas impacted by the fires were big production hubs, entertainment worker union IATSE, made up of crew members responsible for the technical aspects of the business, estimated that at least 8,000 of its members have been evacuated or had their homes damaged or destroyed.
“Many who participate in the region's entertainment economy are directly affected by this tragedy; and many places beloved by nationwide audiences may never return to the screen," said FilmLA President Paul Audley in a statement.
Major studio landlords like Hackman Capital and Hudson Pacific said none of their properties were affected. But the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods most affected by the fires were home to a range of entertainment industry workers, including directors, executives, set decorators and sound editors.
The fires came on the heels of a year of retrenchment for the Los Angeles entertainment industry. Head counts are shrinking across the industry as firms adjust to the new demands of a streaming-dominating industry, according to Brian Frons, the former head of ABC Daytime and a current professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Amazon MGM Studios, Disney's Pixar division, Fox Entertainment, Paramount Studios and Warner Bros. Discovery are among the major players that announced local job cuts in 2024.
And while many of the skilled crew members and other workers who make up the talent pool in Los Angeles might be tempted to migrate to other regions, experts point out the entertainment industry slowdown is not isolated to Los Angeles. Lindsay Dougherty, vice president of the Western region for the Teamsters Local 399 film industry union, said most of its 6,000 members, especially those whose homes burned in Altadena, plan to rebuild.
Studios of the future
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved Hackman Capital Partners’ $1 billion planned transformation of the historic Television City studio property in Beverly/Fairfax earlier this month.
The development firm plans to modernize the studio it acquired from CBS in 2019 for $750 million, creating 1.7 million square feet of sound stages and support space. The plan preserves the studio’s historic facade and includes approximately 1.4 million square feet of new construction. Hackman Capital expects to complete the project at 7800 Beverly Blvd. in 2028, before the Olympics. The company has a separate $1 billion proposal to renovate Radford Studio Center at 4024 Radford Ave. in Studio City under review.
“We believe in Los Angeles. Our customers want to film in Los Angeles,” said Michael Hackman, founder and CEO of Hackman Capital, in a statement.
It's not the only major studio development underway. In Downtown Los Angeles, East End Studios expects the city council to approve its 675,611-square-foot Arts District LA Campus this year.
The 15-acre campus Downtown is expected to include 16 soundstages totaling 299,012 square feet, 307,407 square feet of offices and 69,192 square feet of support spaces. It's part of a portfolio of five properties with 38 total soundstages the company owns or is developing around Los Angeles.
Purpose-built new studio spaces are more in keeping with today's modern studio workflow and to attract top-flight productions, according to East End Capital managing partner Shep Wainwright.
Meanwhile, work began earlier this year on Echelon Studios, a joint venture between Bardas Investment Group and Bain Capital Real Estate that will occupy a full city block at 5601 W. Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood once occupied by a Sears store. The complex will include 110,000 square feet of production studios and support space, more than 388,000 square feet of offices and 12,300 square feet of ground-floor restaurant space.
And Warner Brothers is finishing up a $500 million renovation of its Warner Bros. Studio Ranch lot at 3701 W. Oak St. The project will include 16 sound stages and 229,000 square feet of office once completed later this year.
Curbing recent growth
Despite the overall downturn for the entire year, film and production activity had been gathering steam recently. Overall production in greater Los Angeles increased 6.2% from October through December 2024, according to FilmLA.
And state leaders plan to expand the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program from $330 million to $750 million per year. The increased funds, if approved as expected, would take effect by July 2025.
The program was responsible for a significant amount of activity in 2024, driving 19.2% of feature film production and 19.5% of all on-location TV drama production in Los Angeles during the fourth quarter, according to FilmLA.
In its fourth-quarter earnings call this week, executives from Los Angeles-based Netflix, one of the biggest local producers and distributors of entertainment, said the fires had not significantly impacted its ongoing productions in the area.
The company wants to fast-track production of more scripted television, feature movies and live entertainment events in coming years to gain market share.
International media coverage of the fires has also spurred a groundswell of support from the global entertainment industry for Los Angeles. A variety of professional guilds has established funds to help support actors, writers, wardrobe designers and others stay afloat while they rebuild their lives after the fires.
“It has also been heartening in the wake of the Palisades and Eaton fires that displaced so many Angelenos to see the outpouring of donations and support from major studios including Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon MGM, Comcast/NBCU, and Sony,” said Victor Coleman, chairman and chief executive of Los Angeles-based entertainment real estate landlord Hudson Pacific Properties, in a LinkedIn post this week. “The logical next step for these media giants is to double down on productions in Los Angeles to get our impacted community members back to work and drive broader economic activity.”