GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Maybe Paramount-Warner Should Leave L.A.
The party crashed when COVID literally shut the town down for years, followed by Peak TV overbuild, cord-cutting, streaming losses, rate hikes, two strikes. Then, to the shock of the Gen Z-led merchandising industry, the customer rejected their Bluetooth Sandinista Mickey Mouse dildo and decided it was inappropriate for kids.
Where others see a smashed dildo, David Ellison sees the pieces of a $165 billion 2001 Time Warner/AOL merger for the bargain-basement price of $110 billion. He’s ready to leave where he’s not wanted. He’ll be fine.
However, for L.A., it’d be a death blow. The infrastructure is already suffering with vendors going out of business and crewmembers quitting. If Paramount-Warners leaves, the built-in advantage of being a mecca for filmmakers with access to top talent, props and equipment disintegrates overnight. Studio stockpiles of props, wardrobe, cranes and cameras can truck over to Nashville or Austin. Crews can suddenly live in lower-cost states and afford homes and schools for their kids. They may have to pray to Baby Jesus a little more, but a little Holy Ghost Power never hurt nobody.
This is not 1986, when you have to shoot below the roof of a backlot set. We can extend and digitally enhance anything. Setting up shop in business-friendly, film-friendly cities has no downside if the infrastructure truly moves. Every vendor benefits from the lower cost of living for its employees, especially the struggling working class that no one seems to give a shit about in these culture wars.
A major studio leaving L.A. is a nuclear explosion that creates a chain reaction. Eventually other studios start calculating a zero percent state income tax. The math was already there, and yet the only incentive the politicians are handing them is the incentive to act on it.
California already lost Tesla and SpaceX to Texas. McKesson, Oracle, Chevron, Charles Schwab, CBRE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AECOM, Public Storage. Palantir went to Denver. Yamaha left for Georgia. The fucking owner of In-N-Out now lives in Tennessee. When politicians treat business as the enemy, the question isn’t why Paramount would leave. It’s why would they stay.
Will the last business out of California please turn off the Greta-approved eco-lights?