Today's Edition
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP)
US President Donald Trump's proposal to put 100 per cent tariffs on foreign movies left many filmmakers scratching their heads. But it did highlight a problem plaguing Hollywood: cinema is rapidly abandoning its longtime home.
For decades, almost every film that hit US theatres - as well as most of what was on TV - emanated from a handful of movie lots in the sun-soaked capital of America's entertainment industry.
Actors, stunt performers, costume designers, set builders, editors and special effects wizards flocked to Los Angeles, where they worked with hundreds of thousands of drivers, caterers, location managers, animal handlers and prop wranglers to produce thousands of hours of output every year.
The city boomed from the 1920s onwards because it was an industry town with a virtual stranglehold. Not any more.
"The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," Trump blared on his social media platform over the weekend.
All-time Low
The number of shooting days in Los Angeles reached an all-time low last year - lower even than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when filming shut down completely.
Less than one-in-five film or TV series broadcast in the United States was produced in California, according to FilmLA, an organisation that tracks the movie industry.
"On-location production in Greater Los Angeles declined by 22.4 per cent from January through March 2025," it said in a report, with film and TV production both down 30 per cent year-on-year.
Southern California's high costs - including for labour - are a problem for studios, whose margins are small, especially as fewer people are prepared to shell out for pricey cinema tickets, preferring to watch titles at home.
As revenue pressures mount, production houses are turning to filming opportunities abroad that offer them savings.
And there is no shortage of countries courting them: Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Hungary, Thailand and others all offer tax incentives.
The temptation to film abroad only increased during the Hollywood actors' and writers' strike in 2023, said entertainment lawyer Steve Weizenecker, who advises producers on financial incentives.
"During the strikes, I had production that went to the UK, that went to France, Italy and Spain, because they couldn't shoot here," he told AFP.
"And so the concern now is how do we bring that back?"
Toronto, Vancouver, Britain, Central Europe and Australia now all rank above California as preferred filming locations for industry executives.
Competition has never been more fierce: in 2024, 120 jurisdictions worldwide offered tax incentives for film and TV production, almost 40 per cent more than seven years ago.
