Dince Tuesday, January 7, when the fires started, Hollywood has been a shadow of itself. The fires decimated, destroyed, killed… A disaster of a magnitude that no one could imagine. A disaster which will affect the city for years and which is already causing great harm to its main industry, the cinema.
The studios were not affected, but on the roofs of the gigantic sets of Warner or Universal, the American flags are at half-mast, a metaphor for an industry that really did not need that.
Karie Bible is an analyst at Exhibitors Relations, an industry data monitoring company, a sort of barometer of Hollywood activity. For her, it’s obvious, the disaster comes at the worst time. “The fires are the third disaster to affect our industry in less than four years,” she explains. “First there was the pandemic. And as soon as we came out of it, we had the double strike of the writers and actors. For a long time, we all repeated this credo: Let’s survive until 2025 and we’ll be fine! 2025 has arrived and with it, a third disaster, these atrocious fires, a total disaster. »
The impact of cancellations
A disaster whose consequences were immediate. Since January 7, everything has been put on hold in Hollywood. Filming has all been stopped, the various planned events, previews, award ceremonies, red carpets, etc., have all been canceled or postponed to a undoubtedly very later date. The Oscars are also affected. The announcement of the nominations has been postponed for the moment until January 23, but things can still change, and the nominees’ lunch has already been canceled. The money that should have been used for his organization was paid to a victims’ support fund. Thus, more than $250,000 was made available to those who lost everything.
As for the ceremony itself, no information at the time of writing but it seems unlikely that it will take place, at least in its usual form. It’s hard to imagine the stars parading down Hollywood Boulevard with diamonds around their necks or having a blast at extravagant parties when everything burned just a few miles away and many of those who work on the event no longer have a home to return to. once the job is finished.
But at the same time, if everything is canceled, all of these people simply won’t have any work at all. “What many forget,” Karie Bible reminds us, “is the economic impact of these awards ceremonies. An awards ceremony postponed or canceled means hairdressers, makeup artists, limousine drivers, caterers, bartenders, a ton of modest workers who find themselves without income. This is much more important than people realize. »
This is just one example of the post-disaster crisis Hollywood expects to face. There will be others, many more. So help is organized… The stars put their hands in their pockets. Many followed the example of Jamie Lee Curtis, who the day after the disaster offered a million dollars to a support fund. Leonardo Di Caprio, Eva Longoria, Beyoncé, Michael Douglas, Kim Kardashian and many others have followed suit. Taylor Swift even went so far as to donate $10 million. Not to mention all those who did it while preferring to remain anonymous.
The studios followed. Disney donated $15 million. Paramount, Sony, Netflix, they all participate in the charitable effort. There will also be other initiatives such as an LA FireAid concert which will take place on January 30 in which Billie Eilish, Sting, Green Day, Stevie Nicks and Lady Gaga will participate. And the Grammys ceremony, the Oscars of music if you will, will take place on February 2 as planned, but it has been transformed into a fundraiser to help the victims of the fires, a sort of telethon with distribution of prizes in the middle… Help is being organized and fortunately everyone is getting involved, but the figures are worrying.
-With all these helping hands, with also the aid from the State of California promised by the governor as well as federal funds, it is estimated that the aid collected will be around 600 to 700 million dollars. But it will take at least 10 billion to rebuild everything that was destroyed… Insurance should play their role, but if in the Pacific Palisades district, most of the owners were insured, it is far from being the same in the much more modest neighborhood of Altadena.
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Even if the help is there, the future of LA and Angelenos is not bright. So many are thinking of leaving the city of cinema. “There are limits to what we can bear,” confirms Karie Bible. “Everyone breaks down at one time or another. At some point, everyone will wonder if they can continue or if they should do something else, somewhere else. » Until then, resilient Hollywood has always been able to rise from its ashes.
The crisis she is going through today looks like an ultimate test. To have any chance of getting out of this, Hollywood is going to need the industry to be firing on all cylinders. We have to make films. And you have to go see them. The fate of cinema has always been in the hands of its spectators. This is even more true today than ever.
