Hollywood elites begging for more taxpayer handouts as filming in Los Angeles plummets by a staggering 22% in just three months.
At a Glance
- Los Angeles on-location filming dropped 22.4% in Q1 2025 compared to the previous year
- Television production crashed 30.5%, with TV dramas plummeting nearly 39%
- Despite California’s ongoing budget crisis, Governor Newsom wants to more than double film tax credits to $750 million annually
- TV comedies are fleeing the state since they’re ineligible for California’s current film incentives
- FilmLA admits California is “surrendering” to competing states with better tax incentives
Hollywood’s Golden State Exodus Continues
The numbers are in, and they’re absolutely devastating for the entertainment capital of the world. According to new data from FilmLA, on-location production in Los Angeles nosedived by 22.4% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous year. Total shoot days plummeted from 6,823 to just 5,295 in a mere three months. But don’t worry, folks – California’s brilliant solution to this problem is to throw more of your tax dollars at wealthy Hollywood studios while the state drowns in debt and middle-class families flee to Texas and Florida.
Television production took the hardest hit with a stunning 30.5% decline. TV dramas fell 38.9%, comedies dropped 29.9%, reality shows decreased by 26.4%, and pilot production absolutely collapsed with an 80.3% decline. Remember when California used to be the place everyone wanted to film? Those days are long gone, as productions vote with their feet and head to states that don’t suffocate them with regulations, taxes, and endless bureaucratic nightmares.
Governor Newsom’s Taxpayer-Funded Hollywood Bailout
In classic California fashion, Governor Gavin Newsom’s solution isn’t to fix the underlying problems making the state uncompetitive – it’s to raid the taxpayer piggy bank. The governor is proposing to increase California’s film and TV tax credit program to a whopping $750 million annually, more than double the current $330 million. This comes as the state faces a projected $38 billion budget deficit. But priorities, right? Who needs functional roads, affordable housing, or reliable electricity when Hollywood celebrities need more handouts?
“California can’t afford to surrender any more work to its competitors” said FilmLA spokesman Philip Sokoloski.
What Sokoloski conveniently fails to mention is that California has been surrendering businesses in virtually every sector for years due to its hostile regulatory environment. Film and television isn’t special – it’s just the latest industry realizing there are better places to do business. The proposed legislation aims to increase tax credits to cover up to 35% of qualified expenditures for productions in Los Angeles. Nothing says “sound fiscal policy” like subsidizing one of the wealthiest industries in America while regular citizens struggle with the highest state taxes in the nation.
A Comedy of Errors: TV Shows Abandoning Ship
Perhaps the most revealing statistic is that half-hour TV comedies are increasingly choosing to film elsewhere because – get this – they’re completely ineligible for California’s film incentives. You read that correctly. In the industry that gave us classics from “I Love Lucy” to “Seinfeld,” California has decided comedies don’t deserve the same treatment as other productions. No wonder the state has become such a humorless place – they’re actively driving comedy out of town!
“Each drop reflected the impact of global production cutbacks and California’s ongoing loss of work to rival territories” according to the report.
Television production has plummeted by an astonishing 58.4% since its peak in 2021. Feature film production declined by 28.9%, and commercials fell by 2.1%. Even the “other” category, including smaller productions, dropped by about 20%. It’s almost as if producers are sending a clear message that California’s policies are completely out of touch with economic reality. Meanwhile, states like Georgia, New Mexico, and even New York are rolling out the red carpet for productions fleeing the West Coast.
The Real California Disaster Story
While FilmLA tried to blame January’s Palisades and Eaton fires for some disruptions, the report admits these natural disasters affected only 1.3% of regional filming. The far bigger disaster is the state’s economic policies. California faces competition from virtually every other state and numerous countries offering better tax breaks, fewer regulations, and lower costs of living for cast and crew. When your state is so expensive and difficult to work in that producers would rather ship entire productions across the country, you might have a fundamental problem.
“The California Production Coalition estimates that the average location shoot adds $670,000 and 1,500 jobs a day to a local economy. And the County of Los Angeles and Beacon Economics report that there are 10,500 entertainment related businesses in the state” said FilmLA VP of Integrated Communications Philip Sokoloski.
Instead of addressing the root causes driving productions away – crushing regulations, astronomical costs of living, rampant homelessness, and crime plaguing filming locations – California’s solution is to throw more money at the problem. This perfectly encapsulates the state’s approach to governance: when your policies fail, double down and make taxpayers foot the bill. The entertainment industry’s exodus is just a preview of California’s coming attractions if the state doesn’t make fundamental changes to its approach to business and governance.
