One big reason Hollywood hasn’t started boycotting states on abortion access –

The Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade puts Hollywood between a rock and a hard place. While some entertainment industry executives have tried to avoid political wrangling in recent years, industry leaders have been forced to accept what talent has come to see as deciding factors when evaluating whether to work on projects with certain partners. Big studios now understand that by remaining silent, they risk alienating talent and audiences.

Major Hollywood companies, including Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, condemned the decision and told officials they would cover travel expenses to perform abortions. The Writers Guild of America called itself the only group in the industry to call for a boycott of filming in states with abortion bans and urged employers to “consider each state’s laws when selecting production locations.”

The apparent absence of widespread calls to boycott shootings in some states that have and will pass restrictions on abortion stands in stark contrast to when many in Hollywood threatened to divest from Georgia after it passed a law in 2019 banning abortion after the detection of a fetus. heartbeat. The difference this time, industry experts say, raises questions about whether filming can be stopped in nearly half the country, especially in states that collectively give billions a year in tax breaks to productions.

Hollywood’s response to Georgia’s abortion ban, now that it’s taking effect, could become a litmus test of how the industry responds to widely accepted laws in several states that have angered most talent. The studios have not said whether they will follow through on threats to boycott filming in the state. It doesn’t seem likely.

“It was relatively smooth,” says Alexis Jackson, a 10-year-old boy from Georgia who works as a director of photography. “My first AD and I have been talking about the boycott concern because there’s been a lot of talk about it, but I haven’t heard anything specific about it.”

After Georgia passed an abortion ban in 2019, Hollywood collectively mobilized to protest the legislation. Netflix said it would withdraw state projects if the law takes effect. Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, AMC, Sony, CBS and Viacom followed suit with similar threats. Some have had success with them: Kristen Wiig has ended production on the comedy Lionsgate Barbie and Star go to Vista del Mar of Georgia, as well as executive producers at Amazon Studios hello. Bob Iger, former Disney CEO, said in response to the legislation that “a lot of people who work for us are not going to want to work there and we will have to accommodate their wishes in that regard.” A massive boycott of the filming has reached Georgia.

But JJ Abrams and Jordan Peele went the other way. They continued to photograph relevant projects in Georgia and decided to donate to organizations working in the so-called state. Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams also urged studios and producers not to boycott filming in the high-production state. While the boycott may send a message to lawmakers in a state that sees billions in spending in Hollywood each year, his reasoning was that it would do more harm to people working in the film industry, most of whom oppose the legislation. . About 100,000 people work in the film industry in Georgia.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, the reasoning seemed to resonate with decision makers in the entertainment industry.

“I feel like we got out of the conversation when people were calling for a boycott; There was a disconnect,” says Melissa Simpson, executive director of Film Impact Georgia. “This time, people know it’s going to hurt people who are already suffering.”

But beyond the boycott’s impact on the workforce, studios’ reluctance to move production out of Georgia could translate to tax breaks in some cases.

After extensive state incentive programs to attract Hollywood dollars, productions have steadily fled California in favor of areas that offer more tax breaks. Credits raised breaking Bad s You better call Saul. in new mexico Living Dead s Avengers: Endgame to Georgia and jurassic world s do you see me now to Louisiana. These states have become their own film centers with adequate production infrastructure.

Thirty-six states offer tax breaks to the film industry. Two of them, Georgia and Louisiana, are major actors in Hollywood and are expected to have passed laws restricting access to abortion, or have already done so. In the last two fiscal years, which ended in 2021, they gave Hollywood $2.11 billion in tax breaks, even as the pandemic shut down.

Of the 22 states that have, most have banned or are likely to ban abortion, 15 offer Hollywood a tax break on juice production. They offer the film industry nearly half a billion dollars in free cash every year. (With the exception of Georgia, which has no annual cap on the incentive program.)

A high-profile physical production executive at the studio, who declined to be named for this story, reports the hollywood reporter that studios are unlikely to turn down tax breaks so big they could make or break a production.

Jonathan Koontz, a film historian at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, points out that the entertainment industry has historically been reluctant to take political action, especially when it comes to money. While most of Hollywood is liberal, the public isn’t confined to one side of the aisle. After all, conservatives also watch movies.

“If you talk about Supreme Court decisions and laws in state legislatures, there are always thousands of them,” says Kuntz. “When you boycott one, some people might see it as a slippery slope. This is dangerous. It is very difficult for a big company to negotiate this.”

Rather than mass boycotts, decisions to divest in states with abortion restrictions can come from studios and select individuals.

“I get the feeling that some companies say they don’t produce in certain states,” says Ivy Kagan Bierman, president of Loeb & Loeb’s entertainment labor practice, which handles union and union negotiations for film, television and digital companies. . “When it comes to mobilization, I hope that some key people at work, such as directors, producers and talent, take the position that they don’t want to participate in projects that are being carried out in some states.”

There are also questions about what a mass shooting boycott in more than half the country would look like, and whether it would even be possible. Jackson, who has resisted calls to end the shootings in any state that doesn’t ban abortion, noted: “How do you do that when it’s on such a massive scale?