California has been losing business to production hubs in regions with generous tax incentives, including New Jersey, which has recently become an East Coast production hot spot<\/a>. In October, Paramount signed a 10-year lease to build a studio there. Lionsgate<\/a>, the studio behind the \u201cHunger Games\u201d franchise, and Netflix also began construction on compounds there in the last year.<\/p>\n California officials hope the new tax credit, which more than doubled from $330 million to $750 million in 2025, will help them reverse what has been a brutal, yearslong slowdown in production in Hollywood\u2019s home state.<\/p>\n \u201cWorkers are going to be getting back to consistent employment in California in 2026,\u201d said Colleen Bell, executive director of the California Film Commission, the state agency that administers the film and TV tax credits. \u201cGrips, electricians, costume designers. We had to sound the alarm. Something bold and urgent needed to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hollywood workforce endured an intense shock when the Covid-19 pandemic halted production in 2020<\/a>. The 2023 actors and writers strikes<\/a>, the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires<\/a> and an overall contraction in studio spending as the streaming bubble popped all worsened the problem. <\/p>\n Even with the tax credit boost, California entertainment workers will face new challenges in 2026, including the prospect of a merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and either Netflix or Paramount Skydance, a major industry consolidation that would be likely to result in more lost jobs.<\/p>\n And there is the uncertainty of Hollywood\u2019s adoption of artificial intelligence tools, expected to be a point of contention when the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers begins its negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild in February.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very mindful of the workforce implications of AI,\u201d Bell said. \u201cBut storytelling still depends on people, and our job is to make sure those jobs remain in California.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSurvive \u2019til \u201925\u201d became the hopeful mantra in California, where many in the production world were depleting their safety nets. But 2025 didn\u2019t turn out to be the boom year workers were anticipating. According to FilmLA, the nonprofit organization that administers film permits in Los Angeles, 2025 was actually the city\u2019s second-worst year, after 2020, in terms of the number of local shoot days for films, TV shows, commercials and other productions.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were starting to wonder if California is still the place to make our home,\u201d said Philip Sokoloski, vice president of integrated communications at FilmLA. \u201cTheir anguish finally reached the ears of our leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n California lost about 40,000 jobs in motion picture and video production in 2024 compared with 2022, a drop of 28%, according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>. Other businesses that depend on Hollywood activity and expense accounts, like restaurants, hotels and dry cleaners, also suffered.<\/p>\n After a push from Newsom and months of lobbying from entertainment unions, the grassroots \u201cStay in LA\u201d movement<\/a>, the Motion Picture Association and out-of-work crew members, California legislators passed the expanded tax credit last summer. <\/p>\n It is in 2026 that industry watchers expect the benefit of the expanded credit to start paying off. <\/p>\n Producers of the new \u201cBaywatch\u201d plan to hire 12 cast members and 181 crew members to shoot over 95 days in California this year, collecting a $21 million tax credit from the state against the show\u2019s $52.6 million production budget. The makers of the Snoop biopic plan to hire 84 cast members and 190 crew people to shoot over 50 days, collecting a $17 million credit against a $48.3 million budget.<\/p>\n![\"Mariel](\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2025-12\/251224-NCIS-origins-jg-a61652.jpg\")