Movie industry insider: “It’s much cheaper making films elsewhere than it is here.”
Now that Spencer Pratt has been escorted out of the Los Angeles mayor’s runoff election thanks to miraculously late-arriving and sketchy mail-in ballots for another candidate, Variety has decided to remind its readers that film and TV productions are fleeing Hollywood for Georgia, Canada, the U.K., or eastern Europe.
Escape from L.A. is not just a 1996 John Carpenter dystopian-sci-fi movie: It’s happening in real time.
On the general state of California’s economy under Democrat control, CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria took to the airwaves, post-election of course, to lament, in part, that “the paradox of California today is a successful economy attached to a failing model of governance.”
In response, Pratt asserted on X (formerly Twitter) that “When I said this throughout my campaign, CNN people called me cruel and unhinged. Now, after they helped secure the election for the 2 dorks responsible for all these problems, CNN is now echoing my campaign talking points as gospel. Fascinating!”
Even Variety, which is part of the go-along-to-get-along liberal corporate media, might not agree that the state’s economy can be deemed successful, at least in the context of show business.
And no sensible person has any expectation that incompetent Democrat Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass or her unqualified socialist opponent can improve Hollywood’s fortunes, in particular, or upgrade the city generally.
The Variety article starts off by describing how the much-hyped Baywatch reboot almost drowned, as it were, from government-imposed bureaucratic obstacles before Los Angeles regulators relented somewhat to avoid negative headlines.
Reboots, sequels, and prequels, have run rampant among films and TV studios. As an aside, good art almost always should standalone, with the possible exception of The Godfather Part II.
That the industry is relying on also rebooting, among others, The Rockford Files and Little House on the Prairie – neither of which has any chance of improving on the originals – also speaks to Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy in addition to a potential financial bankruptcy.
In addition to prior articles on this subject, [your]NEWS has posted a deep dive into the Variety piece about the entertainment industry’s woes.
The crux of the Variety article is as follows:
“Los Angeles has been the world’s entertainment capital for 100 years and still has an unmatched concentration of talent and infrastructure. But in an age of globalization, with easy international travel and communication, the city is losing its edge.
“Everything costs more in L.A., starting with labor, due to the high cost of living and elaborate union agreements. Other states and countries have developed crew bases of their own, are more solicitous of producers’ needs and offer more generous incentives. Producers are also under pressure from the audience to deliver ever more spectacular experiences. Creating a premium product — at a price — often means going overseas…since the end of the streaming bubble in 2022, America has lost 73,000 production jobs — two-thirds of them in Los Angeles — bringing the issue of foreign competition to a rapid boil…”
“Advocates warn that unless the U.S. responds to foreign subsidies, Hollywood is at risk of becoming Detroit, which has bled jobs as automakers pursued low-wage labor and generous incentives in other states and abroad…”
Variety quotes one producer who summed it up succinctly: “It’s much cheaper making films elsewhere than it is here.”
Crime and homelessness are also ruining the quality of life in the area, even in previously safe upscale neighborhoods where celebrities and those in their orbit live.
California Democrats are floating the idea of federal tax credit legislation, and increasing exiting state subsides, to rescue the industry.
Many every-day Americans would wonder, however, why taxpayers should be put on the hook for the far-left-leaning industry’s failings.
Breitbart senior writer John Nolte, for one, is hardly a fan of a ‘tax cut for the rich,” as he describes it.
“Even though Hollywood hates, denigrates, smears, insults, and dismisses half the country as ignorant, backwards racists, this failing industry is so desperate for more corporate welfare that there’s a serious push to give the hateful bigots in Hollywood a federal tax credit…
“What’s especially galling is that we have an industry that fights against any kind of tax relief for anyone else, but when it comes to them, suddenly Reaganomics smells pretty sweet…
“The Failed State of California takes in nearly $300 billion — with a “B” — in annual tax revenue, but only offers $750 million in tax incentives to keep movie and TV production in the state…that works out to about one-quarter of one percent of the budget…What — because California pisses billions away to create more homeless, build supertrains to nowhere, subsidize failing schools, and give illegal aliens free housing and healthcare, the very people Hollywood hates should step in and pay the freight?…
“People say that Hollywood is on its way to becoming the next Detroit, only they say it like it’s a bad thing.”
Ironically perhaps, Variety quotes an official from the North America-based International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) labor union who made an analogy to the then-demise of the above-referenced domestic automotive manufacturing industry.
The filmmaker who operates the Mann Made Cinema X feed wasn’t having it:
“Variety spent the last two months trying to ridicule the one Mayoral candidate who was going to help, and IATSE endorsed the very Mayor responsible for running Hollywood out of town. These people are brainwashed clowns.”
Variety spent the last two months trying to ridicule the one Mayoral candidate who was going to help, and IATSE endorsed the very Mayor responsible for running Hollywood out of town. These people are brainwashed clowns. https://t.co/SrYwoiatrI
— Mann Made Cinema (@Hotshot_Movie) June 17, 2026
Writing for an online publication called MAMA Magazine that appears to cover cultural issues (and contains some controversial content), a purported Hollywood insider claims that the Variety author “being a mainstream journalist, rattles off all the acceptable explanations” for Hollywood’s downfall.
But Variety, the MAMA writer opined, missed the point because “Hollywood is killing itself” — with the implication that identity politics is the actual culprit.
“You’ll never hear that the content just sucks; that we just haven’t been producing entertainment that’s widely enjoyed. And that we’re willing to let Hollywood die before re-focusing from politics and morals to art and commerce…Hollywood’s new guard proved that, if given the choice between a robust, diverse, and profitable industry, or a monolithic, politically correct, quota-meeting industry, they will choose industrial suicide…”
The piece also maintains that Hollywood movers and shaker inexplicably expressed hostility toward Paramount’s impending purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery even though CEO David Ellison promised to ramp up annual production to about 30 movies for theatrical release, something that rival Netflix never would have done.
“…the idea of the largest global streamer absorbing a major theatrical studio and almost surely reducing the number of movies in theaters was a concern they were willing to overlook. As long as [Netflix] was the company that paid the Obamas $65 million for their now departed partnership, they’re happy…”
The Five co-host Dana Perino recently said something roughly along the lines of that product placement in Netflix content is not a product (a computer, a beverage, and so forth) per se: The product is identity politics.
If you casually scroll though the Netflix originals catalog, you might agree with the Fox News personality.
Incidentally, the ABC reality show Shark Tank packed up and left Los Angeles for the Atlanta area where it is currently filming its 18th season.
And it’s interesting (and maybe perplexing for British citizens) that the U.K. has become a hub for entertainment production even as its economy under a Labor Party government there has serious problems. “The U.K. alone spent $2.2 billion on film and TV subsidies in 2024, and national incentives are often stacked on top of local rebates,” Variety explained.
With mail-in ballots handed out like Halloween candy, it would be stunning development if Republican Steve Hilton — who coincidentally is from the U.K. — can overcome the far-left Democrat ballot-harvesting machine and actually win the governor’s election in November and implement desperately need reforms for all California workers.
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