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In both aging and ongoing news, if you work in film or series production, you've probably heard quite a bit about a mass exodus or expansion of production companies from the West Coast to the East Coast. According to ProdPro, as of 2025/26, it seems many studios are choosing the UK and Canada over the US altogether. In fact, on their list of top preferred filming destinations, California has slipped behind markets including Australia, Central Europe, and Vancouver. Probably not a great sign long-term.
Stateside though, one of the loudest additions to the US northeast is Netflix's 12 brand new soundstages at the former Fort Monmouth Army Base in Eatontown/Oceanport, NJ. The $55 million land purchase covered nearly 300 acres, with a groundbreaking held in May 2025. Good for New Jersey, as well as for the veteran and green crew members who are always in the market for work.
Also on Jersey's side of the Hudson, but in view of NYC's skyline, there are a couple of developments worth keeping in the forefront of your mind. Lionsgate is anchoring Great Point Studios near Newark, a $125 million, 350,000 square foot complex with five soundstages and post-production facilities, likely operational around 2027. And regardless of how you, or I, feel about the new ownership, Paramount has signed a decade-long lease occupying 85,000 square feet at the upcoming 1888 Studios in Bayonne, also with a TBD completion date.
Here in Queens, joining Kaufman Astoria Studios and Silvercup Studios, is now East End Studios, which opened back in October 2025 over in Sunnyside. And most recently, Robert De Niro's Wildflower Studios, which has since played host to CBS' Elsbeth, opened in Astoria. De Niro's joint has 11 soundstages and has garnered notoriety for being the world's first vertical media production facility. I don't mean vertical content, though I'm sure that will find its way in there too, but I mean the 11 soundstages are stacked on top of one another across two floors within a seven-story building. Borden Studios in LIC also recently joined the fray, and soon in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Steiner Studios which recently broke ground.
Now... is there work? Let's hope.
Disney just laid off roughly 1,000 employees, affecting nearly all of its brands. Many of those cuts landed in the marketing and publicity departments, but Marvel Studios’ VFX teams took a particularly hard hit as the studio aims to shift much of its future visual development work to outside contractors. This move is puzzling given that Disney had just announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and a licensing deal that would have brought over 200 of their characters into the Sora text-to-video platform, only for OpenAI to abruptly shut Sora down in March, leaving Disney with a dead deal. So the question of who is actually doing the creative work over at the House of Mouse gets murkier by the day. Personally, I am not shedding too many tears on that sort of deal being placed in limbo for now.
Sony shuttered their own VFX firm, Pixomondo, entirely, according to Variety. Overall they've cut a few hundred TV and film-related jobs as of late.
Additionally, JJ Abrams packed up his Bad Robot and headed to New York after a slow, years-long downsizing. The company sold its Santa Monica headquarters for $31 million to an independent production company called Black Bear Pictures, whose credits include The Imitation Game, Sing Sing, and Nyad. No word yet as to what Abrams or Black Bear have planned for their next moves.
Anecdotally, production work on the whole in the US seems to be in a weird spot. In groups, amongst peers, and across job boards alike, I've heard consistent worry about job security and job scarcity. A lot of folks appear to be pivoting to new careers as well.
My opinion, it just feels like there's a severe lack of direction for the film and TV industry. Studios are keeping to safe-bet IPs and adaptations, despite having a number of original IP winners in 2025 (Sinners, Marty Supreme (a fictionalized account), and One Battle After Another (a loose adaptation), to name a few.) I've also heard whispers of an uptick in vertical series or vertical dramas as well as content creator integration in the coming years. And I am curious to see how the success of Markiplier’s Iron Lung factors into future studio creative choices.
So time will tell, but I surely hope for the best. Studio heads also need to realize that while AI may have a place in the future of filmmaking, I'd be willing to bet it won't keep them solvent long-term. At some point they’ll re-learn that they need people to make memorable and profitable stories that will build trust with their brands again.
On the ground though, the infrastructure is there and Hollywood East is coming. I'll be here in Queens, two miles from a billion dollars worth of new soundstages, waiting for my phone to ring like everyone else — but don't do that. Network your ass off.
If you're navigating the same uncertainty, I'd genuinely love to hear how it's shaking out in your corner of the industry.
Drop a comment or reach out directly. We're all figuring this out in real time.
- Ryan
Sources: The Local Girl, Hollywood Reporter, ProdPro, Deadline, Variety, Backstage, No Film School
