Hollywood hasn’t restarted yet. After the strikes of screenwriters and actors, which blocked productions for six months in 2023, the sector recorded the most dramatic contraction of the last 30 years. Producer Michele Greco attempts an explanation: “Shooting in Hollywood is now a drain: between the wages of the crew and the rent of materials, machinery, locations and theatres, a day of filming in LA costs almost double that in Georgia”, he says this 55 year old Roman, who has been based in Los Angeles for two decades.
California offers 330 million dollars a year in tax credits: New York offers 700 and Georgia has no limit. Not to mention foreign countries, from the United Kingdom to New Zealand, from Hungary to Canada, which offer advantageous tax incentives and much lower salaries for crews.
“After months of tiredness, I started a series produced by a Major – says relieved Susie Mancini, 39, who arrived from Milan in 2007 and today is a set designer with an Emmy nomination in her pocket – I find myself working with people who have done a dozen of Oscar-winning films, who has been without a job for months and has to accept reduced pay or duties”.
“The studios have run out of money, they have to cut and cut – reads Greco – They took advantage of the strike to terminate some onerous contracts without penalty and close unprofitable projects. If before they produced 10, now they produce 5”. In 2024, 90 films will be released, compared to 100 in 2023.
The series produced will be around 300, compared to 481 in 2023 and 633 in 2022 (data from Ampere Analysis). Also contributing to the red figures are the flight of spectators from cinemas (according to forecasts, takings in 2024 in North America will be equal to 8 billion dollars, -10% on 2023 and -30% on 2019) and the decline in subscriptions to platforms after the peak of the lockdown.
“Everything has changed. There’s no going back. The majors now have to please the stock market more than produce good cinema”, is convinced of this by Walter Volpatto, from Turin, born in 1971, who has been in Hollywood for 20 years. He has done the color correction of films such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Dunkirk, Green Book and, recently, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.
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