Three years on from the dual writers and actors strikes, and everything is not as film and television workers might have hoped.
After years of adopting phrases like ‘survive til ’25’ to establish a light at the end of the tunnel, the Hollywood labor unions are out of pithy offerings. Both the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA recently secured speedy contracts with the major studios to avert a health plan funding crisis, agreeing to tack on an additional year. The DGA is also expected to prioritize healthcare this go-around as the global production contraction has severely impacted employment levels.
President Donald Trump turned his sights on Hollywood early in his second term, appointing Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson as his so-called “special ambassadors to Hollywood” before inauguration day. Deadline understands that Voight presented a plan to revive domestic film production later in the year, but aside from brief mentions of a possible foreign film tariff on social media, the president has seemingly turned his attention elsewhere.
The issue might seem like a slam dunk for Republicans and Democrats alike, given it has largely been framed as a necessity to protect American jobs.
So why is it taking so long to get anything tangible over the finish line?
Behind the scenes, key stakeholders across government, labor, and the major studios have been working to find a path for the federal government to address the decline in domestic production.
Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Laura Friedman are at the forefront of building bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for a federal film tax incentive that stacks on top of the benefits offered by each state. While the bill has not been formally introduced, they both leaned into the message of protecting American workers by pushing back on the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Deadline also understands that advisers from the White House economic and domestic policy councils have also participated in talks regarding potential federal interventions with stakeholders, including other lawmakers as well as labor leaders and studios.
MPA chief Charlie Rivkin confirmed as much at CinemaCon in April, saying, “We’re at the center of it all—together with studios, unions, guilds, producers, President Trump’s Hollywood Ambassadors, and more—engaging the White House and Republicans and Democrats in Congress on what would be a true game-changer: A federal film tax incentive.”
“We are fighting daily to reach that goal. And we will keep fighting to make America a more competitive place to make movies,” he added.
Interestingly, while this situation seems as though it should be an easy one to gain bipartisan support, it’s still a tricky one to sell to voters. Outside of districts that depend on film production, lawmakers may be inclined to stay away from the issue until after the November mid-term elections. If the tax incentive does come this legislative session, it’s likely to be during a lame duck session.
California got a taste of the fight that might emerge over the funding of a federal film tax incentive last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom led state lawmakers to transform the Film & TV Tax Credit Program. State officials heard hours of testimony from California production workers who were struggling amid the steep decline in local demand and still pored over the details, worried that the bill might be perceived as a bailout for the Hollywood elite. Despite some tough exclusions, the bill that passed was a significant improvement from its predecessor, more than doubling the available cash for eligible projects to $750 million annually.
The early effects of Program 4.0 were delayed until earlier this year thanks to built-in grace periods for approved productions to commence. Well over 100 productions have received the Program 4.0 credit as of January, including Michael Mann’s Heat 2 and Season 2 of Apple TV’s The Studio.
While the cash infusion was great, the revamped program also widened the pool of applicants by expanding eligibility. Not only is it still quite a competitive program, many major studio execs agree that the coverage is not enough to meaningfully migrate back to the state.
“We love shooting here. We want to shoot here as much as possible, but we do have a financial model that we have to hit,” George Cheeks, chair of TV Media at Skydance-owned Paramount, told reporters at a recent media presentation. “So we have to continue to press for a federal tax credit as well, and to press for even greater improvements on the California credit.”
In terms of improvements, Cheeks added that making above-the-line costs eligible for reimbursement would be the place to start, calling it a “key component” of bringing robust production back to the area. There are efforts to address gaps in post-production and commercials coverage as well.
We love shooting here. We want to shoot here as much as possible, but we do have a financial model that we have to hit.
George Cheeks, chair TV Media, Paramount“Although the 2025 bill was crucial, we never thought that was the destination. We always knew that there was more work to be done,” Entertainment Union Coalition president and Directors Guild of America Western executive director Rebecca Rhine acknowledged in a recent interview.
The EUC, composed of several Hollywood-adjacent labor organizations including the three major above-the-line guilds, recently detailed its conversations with many of California’s gubernatorial candidates in an effort to establish early ties with Newsom’s eventual successor.
Says Rhine: “The person that is elected will absolutely hear from us again, because our anticipation is that we will partner with the next governor to take the next step.”
That partnership will not only, hopefully, lead to additional improvements to the California program but also guide the national conversation on the health of the industry.
“I think that it just makes sense for working people to have a direct conversation with elected leaders, and it doesn’t happen enough,” Rhine says.
It remains to be seen whether the incentives alone can reverse (or even slow) the momentum of a decade of production flight. It’s worth noting that all territories are vying for pieces of a much smaller pie as high-budget television production levels in particular continue to plummet globally.
For a state like Georgia, which has an uncapped program and where production is already rebounding, a boost from the federal government could be enough to compete with international territories’ lucrative incentives. Texas, where leaders have been on a more specific mission to attract projects set in the state from surrounding competitors like New Mexico, may also benefit. California, on the other hand, where the decline in film and TV production over the last three years has cost the state an estimated 51,000 jobs, may need more than just additional cash flow to staunch the bleeding.
Overall shoot days across Los Angeles were down 16.1% in 2025, according to FilmLA. “When I sat down with [local leaders] a year ago, this community, not the industry, the community, was code blue on the table. We’re now in the ICU on life support,” says Cale Thomas, a makeup artist who is co-chair of the LA political and legislative subcommittee for IATSE Local 706.
One doesn’t have to look far to see what he’s referring to, given the recent debacle over Baywatch. Production ran into permitting and regulatory issues with filming on Venice Beach that, had it not been a priority project that local leaders had courted extensively, would’ve taken too long to solve—and time is money.
Producers looking to Baywatch as an example may very well decide that, despite potential incentives, on-location production in Los Angeles is simply not going to be worth the hassle.
Thomas is involved with the Stay in LA movement, which has helped orchestrate some momentum at the city level for reform. The LA City Council recently rolled back some of the red tape around local production, but Thomas says there are many unnecessary roadblocks still in place that hinder mid-tier projects from thriving in the market that was once chock full of them.
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