Hollywood unions warn US has lost film and TV production share
Hollywood is making more film and television than ever, but much less of it is made in America.
That is the warning in a new report issued on Monday by a coalition of Hollywood unions, including IATSE, the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA. The report was prepared by EY and published as Congress weighs a 20%-30% production incentive, meaning a tax break aimed at pulling shoots back to the United States, according to Variety.
The numbers trace a long slide. Twenty-five years ago, studios spent 74% of their film production budgets in the US. Now that share is 42%.
Television shows the same pattern. The US share of TV production spending fell from 94% to 64% over the 25-year span.
Total spending grew sharply while the American slice shrank. Overall film production spending by major studios rose from $3 billion to $7 billion a year. TV production spending jumped from $933 million to $8.4 billion over the same period.
Big-budget films moved fastest. For the 25 most expensive films, the US market share dropped from 74% to 34%.
The report puts a price on that shift. It argues an extra $4 billion a year would be spent on film and TV production in the US if market share had held steady.
The study sets a clear cut-off for what it counts. It covers films with budgets of $5 million or more in 2025 dollars, and TV episodes costing at least $1 million if 40 minutes or shorter and at least $1.7 million if longer than 40 minutes.
What makes this stand out is the timing. Unions say the answer is a federal incentive to revive domestic production. A separate report from the Motion Picture Association argues such an incentive would generate an extra $22 billion in annual domestic production spending by 2035.
An earlier analysis of a US incentive assumed the American share of production would climb to 65%, reaching that level by 2030 for film and 2032 for TV and holding there, according to Deadline.
For crews, this means jobs. A shoot supports hundreds of workers on set and in post-production, from builders and drivers to writers and editors.
The unions plan to press the case in person. They scheduled a rally with Sen. Adam Schiff in Glendale on Tuesday, the day after the report's release.
