Los Angeles is starting to see the impact of California’s expansion to its film and TV subsidy program, with production in the region trending upwards.
After filming levels hit a new nadir last year, L.A. saw a roughly 10 percent increase in shoot days to start 2026 compared to the three month period from October to December, according to the latest report from permitting office FilmLA. Features saw a major uptick in production, logging a 52 percent year-over-year increase. Nearly a quarter of all filming in the category came from titles receiving tax credits to shoot in the state.
Still, production levels trail historic norms. Shoot days in the first quarter (5,121) are nearly 30 percent below the five-year average. At the current rate of filming, L.A. would see the lowest filming levels observed by the film office outside of last year. The figures show an escalating slide in production over the last decade, with shooting in the region sharply plummeting in 2023 after Hollywood’s historic dual strikes that immediately followed belt-tightening by studios as they pivoted toward profitability of their streaming businesses.
As shooting in L.A. declined, California last year passed major revisions to its film and TV tax credit program, which is seeing a surge of applications from productions looking for subsidies. The very first of the titles selected to receive incentives after those changes were made are now filming, with those projects accounting for nearly seven percent of all shoot days in L.A. They make up 22 percent and 17 percent of all feature and TV production respectively.
In a statement, L.A. mayor Karen Bass said, “Hollywood is finally turning a corner with more productions and more jobs.”
The economics of shooting in California, and specifically L.A., are tricky. It’s not any one thing. Other regions have more generous subsidies — many of which give projects tax credits for A-list talent — on top of allowing productions to save a significant chunk on labor costs. It’s among the reasons why features have been fleeing the state for other countries, primarily the U.K. where workers are generally paid less and studios don’t have to cover health insurance, for years.
But in what may emerge as a new trend in regional production, features saw a major uptick in filming levels. The category logged a more than 20 percent increase over the five-year average with 687 shoot days. Roughly 22 percent of all shooting went to state incentivized titles, including Behemoth! (Searchlight Pictures), One Attempt Remaining (Netflix) and Nightwatching (Amazon MGM Studios).
TV — long an anchor of production in the region — fared much worse, recording a 28 percent quarter-over-quarter decrease. Even more alarming: shoot days (1,196) trail the five-year average by more than 60 percent. Filming for reality TV continues to plummet, with the category down 52 percent compared to the three month period from October to December. The trend can potentially be attributed to those shows shooting elsewhere and an overall contraction of unscripted content, which saw premieres in the U.S. decrease by a third since 2022, according to a study by research group Luminate.
“While it’s still too early to make predictions for the coming months, the increase in Shoot Days we are seeing in key categories gives hope for a broader rise in production activity and points to the California Film and Television Tax Program’s growing impact on local job creation,” said FilmLA CEO, Denise Gutches.
