Hollywood Industry Crisis: Layoffs and Production Declines

Lights, Camera, Layoffs: Hollywood Braces for a Massive Industry Contraction

Production days in L.A. drop by 33% as Paramount Global, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery slash thousands of jobs to offset streaming losses.

Sofia Chen

Mar 19, 2026, 10:02 PM PT · 2 min read

Jerry Lewis — Photo: Dietmar Rabich / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

THE RUNDOWN

FilmLA reports a 33.4% drop in L.A. production versus five-year averages.
Paramount Global is cutting 2,000 U.S. jobs before the Skydance Media merger.
Disney has eliminated 7,000 positions to save $7.5 billion in costs.
Scripted series volume is down significantly from the 2022 peak of 633 shows.
Warner Bros. Discovery continues aggressive cost-cutting to reduce multi-billion dollar debt.

Hollywood is currently navigating a brutal "permacrisis" that has left thousands of industry professionals looking for work. According to data from FilmLA, on-location filming in Los Angeles plummeted by 36.4% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the five-year average. This decline represents a fundamental shift in the business model as studios like Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney tighten budgets to appease Wall Street investors.

The human cost of this contraction is staggering. Paramount Global recently began cutting approximately 15% of its U.S. workforce—about 2,000 employees—ahead of its planned merger with Skydance Media. Meanwhile, Disney has eliminated over 7,000 positions since 2023 to achieve a $7.5 billion cost-savings goal. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has publicly emphasized the need for "efficiency" as the company grapples with billions in debt following its 2022 merger.

Despite occasional hits like Inside Out 2, the domestic box office is struggling to keep pace with pre-pandemic levels. As Netflix and Amazon MGM Studios pivot toward live sports and reality programming, the volume of scripted television is shrinking. Data from Luminate shows that the total number of scripted series produced in the U.S. has fallen sharply from its 2022 peak of 633 shows, signaling the end of the "Peak TV" era.