Overview
- FilmLA reported on Thursday that Los Angeles logged 4,711 on-location shoot days in Q2 2026, a drop of about 13 percent from a year earlier and down from 5,121 days in Q1.
- Television was the largest sector and rose 34 percent from Q1 to 1,607 shoot days while still falling about 28 percent year-over-year, with scripted dramas up sharply quarter-to-quarter and reality TV down roughly 40 percent year-over-year.
- The expanded California Film & TV Tax Credit program has awarded 170 projects, including a July batch of 41 films, and FilmLA and city leaders say many of those productions are starting now or soon and should appear in next quarter’s records.
- FilmLA’s metric counts only on-location shoot days and excludes most soundstage work, which means stage-heavy comedies and other incentivized productions may not yet show up in the on-location totals; incentivized projects made up roughly 38 percent of TV shoot days and about 33 percent of feature shoot days this quarter.
- Local officials say the incentives are beginning to restore jobs and economic activity and they are pressing for an uncapped credit and faster, cheaper permits, changes that could speed more production and visible recovery in future quarters.