The film metropolis of Los Angeles is also currently recording record numbers of infections. Five cases were reported in the Santa Clarita studios there on Friday, the Warner Brothers-owned “New Line” label had to stop filming last Wednesday, and a large one hit on Monday Television production. The authorities do not want a new lockdown at the moment, but it can no longer be ruled out. In addition to the health problems, there are also serious economic consequences of the pandemic. Since film releases are currently not possible in almost all of Europe and business is also sluggish in the USA, there have already been waves of layoffs in the last few weeks and days. Fifteen percent of the workforce at Lionsgate had to leave, many of them at Sony and NBC-Universal. Even at Disney it was not entirely without personal consequences.
Banks and insurance companies are stubborn
Producers who manage medium budgets of between one and ten million dollars are currently having the most problems. Films that cost significantly more are usually made by companies that can finance themselves and protect themselves against all risks, such as Netflix and the big studios. Anyone who can spend less than a million dollars usually has such a small team that the costs for the corona test every three days required by the trade unions cannot get out of hand and everyone involved can stay together for the duration of production, as filmmaker Dan Mirvish writes from his own experience in “Variety”. He is glad that in his current film all “kiss, dance and fight scenes” before the pandemic in the box and crowd scenes were not planned for lack of money anyway. In his opinion, it is really difficult for everyone with their budgets somewhere between mini and maxi, because they can currently neither find a bank to finance a project nor an insurance company that covers risks. The financial institutions are currently stubborn.
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