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There’s a Feeling We’re Not in Hollywood Anymore
NY Times ^ | Apr 2025 | Matt Stevens and Nicole Sperling

Posted on 05/24/2025 4:08:25 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

“This is an existential crisis — it’s an extinction event,” said Beau Flynn, a producer of big-budget movies like “San Andreas,” which despite being about an earthquake in California was filmed mostly in Australia. “These are real things. I am not a dramatist, even though I’m in the drama field.”

Michael F. Miller Jr., a vice president at the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, who oversees film and television production for the union, said that roughly 18,000 full-time jobs have evaporated in the past three years, primarily in California.

“We are allowing California to become to the entertainment industry what Detroit has become to the auto industry,” Miller said.

That is bad news for people like Josh Viers, a concept artist for more than 25 years. He said he latched on to three major movie projects in the past six months but was cut prematurely on each one when the productions moved to England, Australia and Hungary.

“I more or less have given my career, my life, to this industry,” said Viers, a 48-year-old father of two whose family lost its house in Altadena, Calif., during this year’s wildfires. “It just really hurts.”

One budget document viewed by The New York Times showed the cost of a seven-person set operations team — positions known as “grips” — to be roughly $59,000 for a 30-day shoot in Budapest…Because of health care, pension and other expenses, it costs about $53,000 to employ just one senior-level grip in Los Angeles for the same time frame…

“It’s criminal what California and L.A. have let happen — it’s criminal,” Lowe, the host of “The Floor,” recently quipped on his podcast. “Everybody should be fired.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom has pushed to more than double the available funding for the state’s tax incentive program.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: ca; film; hollywood; losangeles; newsom
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1 posted on 05/24/2025 4:08:25 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

‘“San Andreas,” which despite being about an earthquake in California was filmed mostly in Australia.’

Also wasn’t all that good.


2 posted on 05/24/2025 4:10:19 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
No one wants what Hollywood is selling.



3 posted on 05/24/2025 4:12:39 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and His mercy endures forever. — Psalm 106)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

California today is the world Hollyweirdos wanted and created. Now they’re fleeing it and spreading their contagion to cheaper locales.


4 posted on 05/24/2025 4:13:06 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Don’t worry, you’ll all be replaced by Ai soon.


5 posted on 05/24/2025 4:13:36 PM PDT by VTenigma (Conspiracy theory is the new "spoiler alert")
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

They voted for it. Made their bed...


6 posted on 05/24/2025 4:15:58 PM PDT by Fledermaus ("It turns out all we really needed was a new President!")
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
Producer whines jobs are going overseas.
Also Producer: Let's film in Australian and Budapest for cheap labor.
7 posted on 05/24/2025 4:16:43 PM PDT by HonkyTonkMan ( )
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To: BradyLS

Exactly.

We don’t need their perversions and their anti-civilization propaganda.


8 posted on 05/24/2025 4:16:55 PM PDT by Bigg Red ( Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Hard to make money when your costs are ridiculously high and you create a product that few will pay to watch.


9 posted on 05/24/2025 4:17:53 PM PDT by allendale
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To: BenLurkin
SCHADENFREUDE!

"That is bad news for people like Josh Viers, a concept artist for more than 25 years. He said he latched on to three major movie projects in the past six months but was cut prematurely on each one when the productions moved to England, Australia and Hungary.

“I more or less have given my career, my life, to this industry,” said Viers, a 48-year-old father of two whose family lost its house in Altadena, Calif., during this year’s wildfires. “It just really hurts.”

One budget document viewed by The New York Times showed the cost of a seven-person set operations team — positions known as “grips” — to be roughly $59,000 for a 30-day shoot in Budapest…Because of health care, pension and other expenses, it costs about $53,000 to employ just one senior-level grip in Los Angeles for the same time frame…

“It’s criminal what California and L.A. have let happen — it’s criminal,” Lowe, the host of “The Floor,” recently quipped on his podcast. “Everybody should be fired.”


10 posted on 05/24/2025 4:19:13 PM PDT by StAnDeliver (TrumpII)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Come on everybody, sing along. “Look for the union label...”


11 posted on 05/24/2025 4:21:41 PM PDT by FirstFlaBn
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
They priced themselves out. Also, AI is going to strip out huge swathes of that industry before it has a chance to form as a new cluster elsewhere. For examples see:

Google Flow TV

12 posted on 05/24/2025 4:22:15 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

I remember this from Paul Harvey. Hollywood was once a Christian preserve filled with religious people and churches.

‘Walk of Faith’ tour tells tale of Hollywood’s Christian beginnings
LOS ANGELES (RNS) — The place sometimes known as ‘Hollywood Babylon’ was founded as a preserve of an abstinent Christian lifestyle.
...In 1887, when the name Hollywood first appeared on an official document, and four years after Daeida and Harvey Wilcox, who had made a fortune in real estate in Topeka, Kan., moved to Los Angeles.

The couple bought 120 acres centered at what would become the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, and after Harvey’s death and Daeida’s subsequent remarriage, Daeida began creating her vision of a Christian preserve. On Nov. 14, 1903, Hollywood elected to become an official city by a narrow vote — Daeida, as a woman, was unable to participate.

Daeida and Harvey Wilcox. Photos courtesy of Creative Commons

The first laws passed by the town involved bans on liquor, pool halls, bowling alleys, riding bicycles on sidewalks, the use of firearms and speeding. In 1905, the Los Angeles Times described it as a place where “the saloon and its kindred evils are unknown.”

Instead, it was filled with churches that had taken up Daeida’s offer of free land, regardless of denomination. After growing tired of traveling to neighboring Colegrove to attend her Episcopal church, Daeida gave land along Hollywood Boulevard for St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, which has since moved a few blocks off the boulevard.

The St. Stephen’s former site is now occupied by a family-owned restaurant named Juicy Wingz.

By 1910, Daeida’s town of 500 had expanded to about 5,000, and water scarcity forced Hollywood to incorporate into the booming city of Los Angeles. The detested saloons followed soon after, and by the time Daeida died in 1914, her vision was doomed as well.
source: ...religionnews.com/2019/02/12/walk-of-faith-tour-


13 posted on 05/24/2025 4:24:31 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
>>That is bad news for people like Josh Viers, a concept artist for more than 25 years. He said he latched on to three major movie projects in the past six months but was cut prematurely on each one when the productions moved to England, Australia and Hungary.

<Sam Kinison>MOVE TO WHERE THE WORK IS!!!</Sam Kinison>

14 posted on 05/24/2025 4:28:44 PM PDT by vikingd00d (chown -R us ~you/base)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

All jobs and good people need to leave that crap hole state.


15 posted on 05/24/2025 4:28:56 PM PDT by TexasFreeper2009
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

More Pedro Pascal and girl bosses. That’ll fix everything.


16 posted on 05/24/2025 4:29:01 PM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Long live The Great MAGA Kangz!)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

“I more or less have given my career, my life, to this industry,” said Viers, a 48-year-old father of two whose family lost its house in Altadena, Calif., during this year’s wildfires. “It just really hurts.”

Wow man, I felt the same way when IBM made us train our foreign replacements before laying us off. Suck it up.


17 posted on 05/24/2025 4:33:37 PM PDT by dljordan (The Rewards of Tolerance are Treachery and Betrayal)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Detroit did it to themselves by building cars no one wanted.
Japan came in w Toyota and Honda damaging forever Detroit.
Hollywood is doing the same thing with movies.
Creating something no one wants.


18 posted on 05/24/2025 4:37:33 PM PDT by Zathras
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

There’s no imagination or innovation anymore. Everything is either another boring ‘action’ movie, a remake or sequel, a preachy leftist film, a disaster film in which the disaster is caused by global warming somehow, a movie about a serial killer, or is an R movie that tries to be shocking or provocative - but is actually just trashy and boring, etc. etc.

There are so many wonderful things in life that could be made into amazing movies - but that would require making art instead of preaching an agenda.


19 posted on 05/24/2025 4:38:21 PM PDT by neverevergiveup
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

“I more or less have given my career, my life, to this industry,” said Viers, a 48-year-old father of two whose family lost its house in Altadena, Calif., during this year’s wildfires. “It just really hurts.”

Wow man, I felt the same way when IBM made us train our foreign replacements before laying us off. Suck it up.


20 posted on 05/24/2025 4:40:07 PM PDT by dljordan (The Rewards of Tolerance are Treachery and Betrayal)
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