Why aren't filmmakers shooting in LA?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite being, ya know, Hollywood, more and more movies and TV shows are shooting outside of Tinseltown.

Dozens of U.S. states and many countries offer subsidies for film production. This has drawn filmmakers away from L.A. and led to historically low levels of shooting activity in recent years in the city.

After the COVID shutdowns, labor strikes, and January's devastating wildfires ... what can bring back LA's film industry?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:11.7	The first movie Aaron Moore had ever saw in theaters was Jurassic Park.
0:16.8	I think it was rated not for five-year-olds, but my parents let me see it.
0:21.9	Aaron ended up going to film school, and then he moved to Los Angeles.
0:26.6	He and a couple of collaborators started making independent horror and sci-fi movies together.
0:31.3	There's a little plot twist in Aaron's career journey, though.
0:34.4	He's based in L.A., but he shot his movies elsewhere. Take his 2014 film
0:40.4	Spring about a traveler who gets involved with a woman who turns out to be a mutant. That
0:46.1	movie was shot in Southeast Italy. And they found her dead body in Sicily. Or take Aaron's
0:52.6	2019 movie Synchronic.
0:55.0	This one is about two paramedics
0:56.6	investigating a new drug
0:58.2	that alters people's
0:59.3	perception of time.
1:01.1	It was shot in New Orleans.
1:02.2	He pulled over so much
1:02.9	but people died all over New Orleans.
1:05.1	Both projects had story reasons
1:06.7	to shoot where they did.
1:08.1	But just as important
1:09.1	were the economic reasons.
1:11.2	Erin got incentives from Italy and New Orleans.
	...

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