FilmLA has issued its sixth Sound Stage Study, updating its ongoing survey of Los Angeles area studio developments, and releasing new stage occupancy and use data for calendar year 2022.
FilmLA’s report is made possible by a unique data-sharing partnership with 17 participating studio operators, who by entrusting FilmLA with sensitive business information, help bring the local production picture into clearer focus. Participating studios, which include the six major Hollywood studios and the region’s largest independent operators together control 35 facilities and 83 percent of the estimated 6.5 million square feet of certified sound stage space available in Greater Los Angeles.
Since FilmLA’s last sound stage update in March of 2023, both the U.K. and Georgia have added more than one million square feet of stage inventory to their existing supply. Now comparable to Los Angeles, the U.K. currently has around 6.6 million square feet of stage space, with plans to add dozens of new facilities. Georgia currently has over 4 million square feet of studio space and several significant projects in various planning and expansion phases.
“Just like with trained crew, the availability of purpose-built sound stages is a factor that helps determine the attractiveness of any filming location,” observed FilmLA president Paul Audley. “Our study shows that many jurisdictions are expanding their stage infrastructure and competing harder for the business we also want to win for L.A.”
On a local level, FilmLA is tracking 18 new studio projects totaling roughly 3.5 million square feet of space in various stages of planning and development in Los Angeles.
According to FilmLA’s research participants, recent studio occupancy and utilization in Los Angeles and elsewhere have decreased, as was expected. As new supporting data reveals, as fears of industry strikes began to permeate the industry in the latter part of 2022, Q4 stage occupancy fell below seasonal norms. Overall, L.A. area stage operators reported an average annual occupancy of 90 percent in 2022, down 3 percent from the prior year. Future FilmLA reports will show the full effect of industry disruption on L.A. area sound stage occupancy.
In terms of utilization, a total of 1,354 projects were filmed in 35 facilities owned by the 17 studio participants in 2022. These 1,354 projects generated a total of 10,356 stage shoot days, with episodic television series accounting for the largest segment of production–approximately 30 percent of all projects and two-thirds of all stage shoot days.
With the number of series episodes ordered per season declining across all segments of television (streaming, broadcast and cable), the number of shoot days that series generated declined by 36.4 percent between 2018 and 2022 from 10,582 to 6,901. In 2022, series shoot days accounted for 66 percent of all production activity, compared to approximately 73 percent in 2018.
Santa Clarita Studios, having joined as a research program participant last year, is the latest studio to have its data included in FilmLA’s sound stage study.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults โ two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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