For over a century, Hollywood has been the cradle of American cinema. Here were born some of the most famous films in history, entire generations of actors and directors have worked, and an industry has grown that still shapes cinema around the world. Yet in recent years, something has changed: more and more productions are choosing to shoot away from Los Angeles.
That trend is confirmed by data released a few days ago by FilmLA, the organization that tracks production activity in the region. Between July and September 2026, external shooting days dropped by 4.8% compared with the same period of the previous year. This decline adds to those recorded in recent years and reignites the debate about Hollywood’s future.
Why Los Angeles is losing its productions?
In the third quarter of 2026, Los Angeles logged 4,171 external shooting days, nearly 29% below the five-year average. It is mainly television and advertising productions that are feeling the impact, while cinema shows some timid signs of recovery.
But what drives American studios to film their movies far from Hollywood? The answer, at least in part, is fairly simple: it’s economically advantageous.
Shooting in Los Angeles is very costly, and when dealing with productions in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, even a seemingly small saving can affect the final budget. That’s why more and more companies look to other U.S. states or to countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Hungary, where tax incentives can make filming decisively more affordable.
Hungary, for example, offers productions an incentive equal to 30% of eligible expenses incurred in the country. Suppose a fully eligible investment of €10 million; the benefit could reach €3 million. It’s not surprising that Budapest has become over the years a particularly popular destination for international productions.
Also weighing on the situation are the consequences of the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, to which a general reduction in investments by the major entertainment companies was added.
And when a production leaves Los Angeles, the consequences extend beyond the sets. Technicians, costume designers, production designers, drivers, but also hotels, restaurants, and equipment suppliers: there are countless people and businesses that rely on the film industry.
California races to the rescue: 700 million dollars to bring the sets home
To try to curb this trend, in 2025 California decided to boost the funds allocated to film and television tax incentives, rising from 330 to 700 million dollars per year.
The goal is to lure productions back by offering more competitive financial conditions than those in other territories. And indeed the initial results seem to offer some hope.
According to FilmLA, in the third quarter of 2026, productions that benefited from incentives accounted for 40.3% of exterior shooting days dedicated to fiction content, almost double the previous year.
Television comedies, in particular, recorded a 143% increase in production days. Cinema also showed a slight improvement, up 2.1% compared to 2025.
Positive numbers, at least on paper. Yet when looking at the last five years, film shoots remain 19.3% below the period’s average.
For drama series and advertising, however, the situation remains tricky: dramas lost 9.4% of shooting days, while commercials registered a 15.9% decline.
The road to returning Hollywood to its former levels, in short, still seems long.
Hollywood really at risk of losing its primacy?
To understand what could happen in the coming years, one must consider an often-overlooked aspect: a Hollywood film is not necessarily shot in Hollywood.
Large studios can remain based in Los Angeles, fund projects, and distribute them worldwide, but choose to shoot the footage thousands of kilometers away. This option, as international competition grows, is becoming increasingly common.
California, however, appears determined to bring work back to its soil. At the start of October, new incentives were approved for 35 film productions, from which more than a thousand shooting days in the state are expected.
What these measures will amount to in the long term remains to be seen. Also because FilmLA’s data consider only exterior shoots, excluding those conducted inside certified backlots. The picture, therefore, does not capture all of the region’s production activity.
Hollywood remains one of the main hubs of the global film industry and is unlikely to lose this role in the near term. But the issue is elsewhere: while studios continue to produce films and TV series, a growing portion of the work needed to bring them to life is moving elsewhere.
And for Los Angeles, where cinema has always meant much more than just an industry, losing the sets also means losing jobs and a significant portion of its economy.
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