As the fires in Los Angeles that started earlier this week rage on, Hollywood has been forced to shut down a number of TV productions, including Fallout season 2, and clear the events schedule right in the middle of the awards season.
News about the North American entertainment industry’s reaction to the massive catastrophe arrived on January 8 via trades such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. With most people in the affected areas, including celebrities, now focusing on saving and/or leaving their homes and the entire city on edge and facing the additional hazard of poor air quality, most major studios have made the decision to shut down a number of LA-based productions and either cancel or reschedule events.
FilmLA, the agency handling shooting permits in Los Angeles, also issued an urgent notification saying that “personnel resources ordinarily available to support film production may not be available during the local State of Emergency.” A quick glance at your social media feeds should let you know that half the city has been paralyzed, and that includes a large number of TV/film workers being unable to get to work, especially when their homes might be endangered.
Productions affected include Hacks, Loot, Ted, Suits, Abbott Elementary, NCIS: Origins, Grey’s Anatomy, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and more. Premieres scheduled for this week that have been cancelled include Unstoppable and Wolf Man. The awards season event for Emilia Pérez was canned, too, alongside red carpets for the Robbie Williams CGI-ape biopic Better Man, The Pitt, and On Call.
While some productions are expected to restart either tomorrow, Friday 10, or early next week, the situation is still dire and ever-changing, and the impact on the city and its surroundings will be felt for a very long time. For now, celebrities such as Jean Smart are suggesting TV networks to cut back on their upcoming awards season plans and instead donate some of their revenue to fire victims and fire responders. With the LA Fire Department’s funding being recently slashed (alongside other city programs) in favor of the LAPD, the situation has rapidly spiraled out of control, and each bit of help counts right now.
If you can, please consider donating to American Red Cross, Southern California’s Salvation Army, World Central Kitchen, California Fire Foundation, and the CCF’s Wildfire Recovery Fund. As traditional structures, institutions, and the powerful fail us time and again in the face of climate change and the unchecked consumption of natural resources, we might only have each other to count on.