Like a disaster movie, the Los Angeles fires represent a new blow to Hollywood and its already struggling film industry.
Actors, screenwriters and producers have seen their homes destroyed by flames, film and television productions are temporarily suspended and calls are growing to cancel the awards season there.
All this, while the entertainment sector is already in a bad situation, due to high costs, pushing professionals to abandon the city. Before that, Los Angeles had suffered from the covid-19 pandemic and the actors’ and screenwriters’ strike.
“Hollywood, like everyone else, has been hit by the pandemic with serious consequences. The strikes, obviously, have affected the sector, probably forever,” analyzes Marc Malkin, editor-in-chief for Variety magazine.
“Add to that the fires, and Hollywood just gets hit again and again.”
Filming interrupted
Star actors like Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson and Billy Crystal lost their homes in last week’s fires. Thousands of homes were destroyed in Los Angeles, home to some 680,000 professionals in the entertainment industry or the service sector directly supporting it.
The series “Grey’s Anatomy,” “NCIS,” “Hacks” and “Fallout” are among at least a dozen local television productions that have had to interrupt filming due to the fires. Burbank and other parts of the city housing major studios were threatened by the flames, but have so far been spared. Film LA, which issues permits for location shooting, told producers working in or around evacuation zones to expect to have their permits revoked.
Likewise, the organization warned of a shortage of security officials working on Hollywood productions. Dense smoke and suspended particles from the fires are also an obstacle to the resumption of filming, even outside Los Angeles.
“If you shoot outside of Los Angeles now, (it’s) not great. The air quality is so bad,” observes Marc Malkin.
It is unknown when filming will be able to resume. Aside from logistical issues, the fires are still raging in this Californian region.
In these conditions, turning cameras and projectors back on as if nothing had happened seems tricky. But nothing seems more sensitive than the Hollywood awards season, made up of premieres, galas and ceremonies, which the fires have suspended for the moment. The Critics Choice Awards were postponed, while presentations of “The Last Showgirl,” starring Pamela Anderson, and the singer Robbie Williams biopic, “Better Man,” were canceled due to the fires.
The impasse over the Oscars?
And these program changes even reach the east coast of the United States, in New York, where the screening of season 2 of “Severance”, a success on the Apple TV platform, ultimately did not take place.
“Studios and broadcasters are taking the right response by canceling or postponing events full of glitz and glitz,” says Malkin.
“While Los Angeles is literally and figuratively burning (…) it would be a little disconcerting to hear people talking” on the red carpet “either about their clothes or a stupid anecdote from filming” , he believes. Even the televised announcement of the Oscar nominations was postponed.
“So many of our industry members and colleagues live and work in the Los Angeles area, we’re thinking of you,” Oscar Academy CEO Bill Kramer wrote in a message to its members. Jean Smart, lead actress of “Hacks”, is campaigning to simply cancel the seventh art awards ceremonies.
“I hope that each of the channels that broadcast upcoming awards (ceremony) on television will seriously consider NOT broadcasting them and donating the revenue they earn to fire victims and firefighters. would have earned,” wrote Jean Smart on Instagram.
Mark Malkin believes, however, that such a decision could have serious repercussions for many trades such as hairdressers, makeup artists, waiters, drivers and security guards.
“Yes, celebrities will be fine, financially,” he says.
“But when you think about all these people who work at these various awards ceremonies, they are freelance workers who rely on these salaries (…) it would have a devastating effect.”
Sami Nemli with agencies / Les Inspirations ECO
