As the costs of making movies and TV shows continue to soar, California has found itself last on the list of locations for productions looking to cut costs. But despite this pressure, California’s Attorney General, Rob Bonta, is making it harder for film and TV productions to stay and now he’s even on the verge of chasing Paramount out of the Golden State entirely.
Workers, tens of thousands of them blue-collar, are hardest hit by these political battles. As the industry deteriorates in the state, congresswoman Laura Friedman (D-CA), a former film producer, says employees feel “beaten down,” according to Politico.
Los Angeles County has already lost more than 42,000 film and TV jobs since 2022. Studios, production companies, and filmmakers continue to escape to other states and even other countries to create their entertainment, Politico noted.
Productions have fled the extremely high costs of filming in California and have ended up in Illinois, Louisiana, Georgia, New Mexico, and New York, among a growing list of other U.S. states. Foreign locations are an even greater draw as countries offer huge tax incentives and lower wages, and even fewer union rules in some cases. Countries such as Canada, the UK, Romania, and the Canary Islands have all jumped into the TV and film production game drawing more productions to their shores and away from California.
To combat this massive loss of revenue and jobs, California’s legislature has more than doubled the state’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program to $750 million. But Democrat Gov. Newsom is even working to undermine this credit offer by proposing limitations on the state’s corporate tax credits.
Hellbound and Down 