Why Hollywood Is Facing a Very Unhappy Ending
Layoffs, consolidation, streaming losses and AI are reshaping the film industry, raising questions about whether it’s hit a rough patch or in terminal decline.
Los Angeles’s filmmaking industry is witnessing a historic downturn. Whether it can turn the corner is an open question.
Photographer: Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty ImagesFor more than a century, Hollywood has been America’s greatest cultural export. But these days, shadows lurk behind the obligatory glitz and glamor. The industry is grappling with shrinking box office returns, streaming losses, mass layoffs and rapid technological disruption—much of it courtesy of everyone’s favorite bad guy, artificial intelligence.
Employment in California’s motion picture industry peaked in 2016 amid an explosion of streaming content. But then the pandemic arrived four years later, and crushed it. As Hollywood sought to recover, strikes and mass terminations gutted the industry once more. Now, with a sea of empty soundstages and an increasingly ghost-town feel, America’s entertainment capital is in rough shape. On this weekly documentary, Bloomberg Originals looks at whether Hollywood can bounce back, or if the curtain might be coming down for good.
Shooting days in Los Angeles were down 16% last year, roughly 50% below their 2017 peak, according to FilmLA. US and Canadian box office receipts totaled $8.6 billion in 2025, far below the nearly $12 billion they reached in 2018. This downturn has hit workers across the entire business, from writers and editors to Oscar-winning crew members struggling to find steady work.