While Hollywood has suffered blows from the pandemic and its recent strikes, other factors may prevent it from ever reaching its glory days any time soon, according to a recent report.
Los Angeles County’s motion picture and sound recording industries remain about 20% less than pre-pandemic levels, hovering around 100,000, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday. That marks a 30-year low when excluding the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s strikes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Though disruptions caused by the pandemic and the strikes likely influenced the low numbers, cheaper production costs in cities such as New York City or Atlanta, which offer massive tax credit incentives, have also played a role, the LA Times reported based on interviews from numerous industry insiders. In some cases, LA’s high cost of living has forced below-the-line workers to search for jobs in other cities and industries.
“I feel like I’m starting my business all over again,” said Ryan Johnson, who runs the special effects company NewRuleFX. Johnson told the LA Times he’d taken out loans and additional credit to keep his workers employed.
Hollywood employment numbers are at their lowest in 30 years. (Joan Slatkin/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD RESIDENTS GROW FRUSTRATED WITH LOCAL LEADERS OVER HOMELESS PROBLEM
In the past decade, California’s share of the nation’s motion picture and sound recording industry has dropped from almost 40% to less than 30%, the LA Times reported. Meanwhile, cities outside LA have largely recovered most of their film and TV jobs.
Though other cities’ entertainment industries are faring better, some insiders the LA Times interviewed believe this could be a more ominous sign for the entertainment industry.
“The very basis of what made Hollywood universally popular in the 20th century was the theatrical feature film. That seems to be ending now,” UCLA film historian Jonathan Kuntz said. “It seems the audience has moved on to other things.”
Former Disney executive Charlie Fink highlighted changing audiences, noting that “people have other things to do with their screens.”
“They prefer to spend their time on YouTube and play video games on their phones,” he added. “That’s the problem for Hollywood.”
Experts suggested rising costs of living and the shifting industry are to blame for low employment numbers. (Joshua Comins/Fox News)
The LA Times noted that new technologies and the rise in streaming services like Netflix and online platforms like YouTube have also shifted the market for distributing films. While Hollywood has seen shifts in technology affect the industry before, experts warned that the sheer number of additional factors is concerning.
“The key thing here is that you have so many of these things happening at once that it’s really hard for anybody to feel confident,” Milken Institute economics expert Kevin Klowden said. “There’s a very, very real question right now on the business side that’s playing out, because nobody’s quite sure of the economics.”
Writers and actors have expressed concerns over being replaced by AI in the future. (David McNew)
The LA Times report follows concerns over artificial intelligence replacing workers in Hollywood after new technology has been developed to write scripts and even replicate an actor’s image and likeness. AI was one of the many issues that fueled the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild strikes in summer 2023.
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