Most Jobs on Big Studio Movies Are Now Outside the U.S., Unions Say

A study for seven Hollywood unions found the share of cast and crew on U.S.-shot studio films fell from 72% to 43% from 1999 to 2024.

In 1999, nearly three of every four people working on a big Hollywood studio movie were on a film shot at least partly in the U.S. By 2024, it was 43%.

The figure, down from 72%, comes from a study seven entertainment unions released Monday, Oct. 5, from Los Angeles. The Directors Guild, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, the Teamsters, both Writers Guilds and the Laborers' International Union paid EY's economics group to track where major studios have filmed over 25 years. Less and less of it happened in the U.S.

The budgets moved with the jobs. In 1999, 74% of what major studios spent making movies went to films shot partly or mostly in the U.S. In 2024 it was 42%, the study found.

Television slid too, from a higher start: in 1999, 96% of major-studio episodes were shot at least partly in America. The share of studio TV money going to U.S.-shot episodes fell from 94% to 64%, and the share of TV cast and crew working on them fell from 86% to 58%.

The biggest movies went the same way. Among the 25 most expensive studio films, the share of production spending in the U.S. dropped 40% across the period. Deadline reported that Marvel and Lucasfilm have moved almost all their big-budget shoots overseas, including the coming Avengers movies. It also counted Paramount and Warner Bros. among the studios that have sent recent tentpoles abroad.

The count leaves out a lot of small work on purpose. EY looked only at scripted, live-action productions from larger studios: movies budgeted at $5 million or more, and TV episodes at $1 million or more, or $1.7 million for episodes longer than 41 minutes. Those are the shoots big enough to choose a country, the unions said, and the ones that affect the most jobs.

The unions didn't publish the study just to keep score. They're pushing for a federal film and TV tax credit to compete with foreign incentives. In a joint statement, they said that taken together with a recent Motion Picture Association study, the numbers show America will "continue to lose ground" on the industry and its middle-class jobs unless something changes. The MPA study, out last month, projected that a 20% federal credit on top of state incentives could add $250 billion in gross economic value, Deadline reported.

A day after the report came out, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery closed their $110 billion merger on Tuesday, Yahoo Finance reported. Two of the studios Deadline named, and every movie and show they'll make next, now answer to one company, the new Skydance.

Source: Deadline, retrieved October 6, 2026. Other sources: iatse.net, finance.yahoo.com.