Production in LA Is Still Down. Maybe Next Quarter?
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- FilmLA reported Q2 production in Los Angeles fell 12.7% from the same period in 2025 and 35.9% below the five-year average, totaling 4,711 shoot days versus 5,121 the prior quarter.
- California Film & TV Tax Credit Program 4.0 has awarded credits to 170 projects, with the latest batch of 41 feature films including Disney's "Hexed" and the "Shrek" prequel "Donkey"; FilmLA says most are now shooting and will register in next quarter's numbers.
- TV Dramas shooting in LA — including "Baywatch," "The Night Agent," "Prison Break," and "Ballard" — were down slightly year-over-year but jumped 55.1% versus Q1 2026, a bright spot in the report.
- TV Comedies like "Shrinking" and "The Studio" dropped 43% from 2025, which FilmLA called "disappointing, but not alarming" and attributed to comedies shooting on sound stages that aren't counted in on-location shoot days.
- TV Reality fell nearly 40% from 2025 as part of what FilmLA described as a "multi-year downward trend," and commercial production dropped 21.5%, while student films, documentaries, and music videos rose 10%.
- Mayor Karen Bass called the report "proof that incentives are working" and said she is pushing for an uncapped tax credit covering competition reality TV and above-the-line spend, plus a first-ever federal film incentive.
Why it matters: With 170 tax-credit projects queued to shoot right now, the Q3 report becomes the real test of whether the $750 million credit expansion delivers — and the current 12.7% year-over-year drop, 35.9% slide from the five-year average, and nearly 40% decline in reality TV show that LA's production economy remains in a deep hole that scripted TV alone won't fill.
