Can Hollywood Rebuild After LA Fires?
By Movieguide® Contributor
The LA wildfires have subsided, and those in the industry are reflecting on what it was like to see the horrific devastation that occurred in the area last month and pondering the industry’s future.
“As soon as I landed [in L.A. in early 2023] there was the writers’ strike, then the actors strike,” Mark Linsey, BBC studios executive, told Deadline of the chaos he witnessed in the industry in 2023 up until the fires. “There was a slump in the market, which I describe as a crash really, and then just as you feel we’re easing out of it, you get the wildfires. It has been an extraordinary time.”
Phil Gurin of SHARK TANK also shared his perspective on the disaster. “It looked like Dresden after the war,” he told the outlet. “I have way too many friends who lost everything. A friend and his wife who live in the Palisades went to work one morning and then had nothing but what was in their briefcases.”
He continued, “You find yourself feeling silly talking about TV with people who lost their homes. You see the small ‘mom and pop’ stores and neighborhood shops that have been lost and think you’re lucky that a lot of people in the entertainment biz have some means to weather the storm. Although, of course, not everyone.”
READ MORE: JAY LENO ON WILDFIRE DESTRUCTION: ‘WE’LL GET THROUGH IT. WE ALWAYS DO’
Other industry professionals voiced their concerns over the fires lasting impact on Hollywood, especially on below-the-line workers.
“The fires really did go through a lot of communities that are so central to housing film workers,” Jason Lester, a music video and commercial director who has worked with Hozier, Phoebe Bridgers and Sabrina Carpenter, told The Hollywood Reporter. “That can’t help but have an effect on the industry, especially in the short term.”
“The immediate toll of the fires is really on the the below-the-line workers who crew these projects,” Tyler Aquilina, an author of Deadline’s Production Pipelines: Film & TV in Flux report, expressed. “Now they’re facing additional financial burdens, many of them who may have lost their homes or possessions in the fires at a time when work was already scarce, thanks to both the post-peak TV contraction that we’ve seen that has resulted in a major drop-off in the levels of films and TV shows being produced, along with the general production exodus away from Los Angeles.”
Despite the destruction, Linsey believes those in the industry will find a way to be resilient. “What has happened with the wildfires has been reminiscent of Covid,” he said. “People work out how they are going to carry on in a creative industry with certain restrictions around them. You have to believe in the quality of your ideas.”
The LA wildfires, a collection of seven different fires, began on Jan. 7 and destroyed over 18,000 homes, killing 29 people in the process.
READ MORE: HOLLYWOOD WORRIES RECENT FIRES WILL DRIVE PRODUCTION OUT OF LA
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