L.A.’s Production Future Becomes Clearer as Reforms Take Shape

After decades of inaction, government officials in Los Angeles and the California statehouse are hoping a flurry of reforms can bring runaway productions back to Hollywood.

The state legislature last month voted to enact Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to more than double California’s film and TV tax credit. And just over two weeks later, L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion seeking to streamline the county’s bureaucratic film permitting process.

The latter measure comes on top of an effort within the L.A. City Council to reform municipal permitting procedures and an executive order by Mayor Karen Bass calling on city departments to cut down on red tape.

It’s widely hoped throughout the local industry that these moves will revitalize film and TV production in the L.A. area, which has sunk to historic lows in recent quarters, according to data from FilmLA, the city and county’s collective film office.

The funny thing, however, is that L.A. just had what was quietly its best quarter for production activity in more than a year — with just the prospect of reforms in place.

You might not know it to look at reports on FilmLA’s latest quarterly data, which tended to highlight “a 6.2% decline in total location shoot days compared to the same quarter in 2024” or a slight increase from Q1 2025’s total (5,394 aggregate days vs. 5,295).

But a closer examination of the data reveals a different picture. FilmLA’s topline numbers, which track permitted film, TV and commercial shoots in the region, also include an expansive “Other” category, which, according to the organization, encompasses “still photo shoots, student films, documentaries, short films, online content, plus music and industrial videos.”

When excluding this miscellaneous grouping, Q2 2025 was roughly even with the same quarter in 2024 (actually up just over 1%) and marked L.A.’s first sequential increase in shoot days since Q1 ’24 — or, discounting that quarter (which was boosted by a slew of shoots resuming post-2023 guild strikes), since Q3 of 2022.

The increase was driven by a surge in TV shoot days, which rose more than 30% from the previous quarter and 17% versus Q2 ’24. Curiously, according to FilmLA, only 75 out of more than 2,200 shoot days were “incentivized” — i.e., covered by the California tax credit — a number likely to rise in the wake of the budget hike.

A sustained upswing of TV production (which may also be helped by the U.S. dollar’s weakening value abroad) is a best-case scenario for L.A.’s local industry, as series typically generate more sustained work for crew members compared with film shoots. Case in point: Q2 feature film shoot days remained down more than 20% versus Q2 ’24, despite the recent flurry of new film projects approved for the state tax credit.

Also noteworthy, however, is that, according to FilmLA, all feature films shot in the area in Q2 ’25 were independent productions. Meanwhile, the latest round of tax credit awards by the California Film Commission added another 42 indie films to the roster of upcoming projects in the state, 36 of which are budgeted at less than $10 million.

In fact, more than 80% of the projects approved for the state’s tax credit in the 2024-25 fiscal year (which ended on June 30) were sub-$10 million indies — by far the largest proportion and the largest number (84) for one fiscal year since the Film Commission began tracking began tracking budgets in 2020.

The upshot here is that a new era of L.A. production may already be underway and may indicate what the future holds for the beleaguered region.

While large-scale studio films are unlikely to return to L.A. en masse, it’s possible the reforms now in progress — not to mention the creative community’s enthusiasm behind the efforts — could help reinvigorate smaller and mid-range productions in the city. The fact that TV and indie film productions are already trending upward suggests this is a very real possibility.

The truth remains that the heady days of the peak TV era are not coming back — L.A. film and TV shoot days crested to more than 7,500 in Q3 2021 versus Q2 2025’s 3,400 — and the local industry will likely remain diminished from what it once was. 

But after years of almost continuous bad news, any encouraging sign is like, well, water in the desert.