By Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Filming on location in Los Angeles dropped 22% in the first three months of 2025 from a year earlier, according to statistics released on Monday, as Hollywood grappled with overseas competition and a contraction in production.
The biggest decline occurred with film and television shoots, permitting organization Film LA said. Production of commercials was nearly flat.
FilmLA reported 5,295 total shoot days from January through March, a 22.4% decline from the same period in 2024. When broken down by type, television production fell 30.5% and feature film production fell 28.9%.
“Each drop reflected the impact of global production cutbacks and California’s ongoing loss of work to rival territories,” FilmLA said in a statement.
Labor unions, producers and actors have been pushing California Governor Gavin Newsom to increase tax incentives to make Los Angeles more competitive with other U.S. and overseas locations.
Hollywood has faced several challenges in recent years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, strikes by actors and writers and upheaval from the rise of streaming services.
The wildfires that devastated the Altadena and Pacific Palisades areas of Los Angeles in January had only a small effect on production, FilmLA said. Those regions hosted just 1.3% of all filming over the past four years.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Mark Porter)
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