IS LA STILL TOP GUN?

It was just announced that Jerry Bruckheimer would return to Paramount Pictures, his original home studio,  to produce films for the next several years. It was also announced that he would resuscitate the 48 Hours and Top Gun franchises.

What got me excited, but seemed missing from the report, was the financial impact that announcement will have on Los Angeles. Or, maybe somewhere else.

Bruckheimer makes BIG films: Pirates of the Caribbean, Flashdance, The Bad Boys franchise, Days of Thunder to name only a few. BIG films mean BIG MONEY. It would not be surprising to learn after the films are produced and released they cost in excess of $200 million each. My sense is that number is probably small compared to what it will be when all production and marketing costs are tallied, but whatever they are, there was in that announcement the implied statement  that they are about to spend in excess of $400 to $500 million dollars on these franchises.

Do you have any idea how many people will be hired to work on those films? hundreds, if not thousands. And, there are the service companies , suppliers and facilities that will get work. They too hire lots of people and will need many more to fulfill the BIG film requirements. Then there are locations to be selected and special effects and CGI requirements. Add travel, food, transportation  and the list of needs just goes on and on and on. And all of them can be satisfied in Encino, Van Nuys, Santa Monica, San Bernardino, Culver City and dozens of other Los Angeles area cities and towns. There is an explosion of jobs on the horizon.

When I published The Hollywood Reporter I liked to refer to the entertainment business as a job creation factory. No other industry consistently creates jobs each and every time a film is released.  Look at the end credits of any big budget film,  the names are still rolling when the last of the popcorn is removed from the theater floors. Every name on that list was someone who got paid to do a job. Sadly they all have to go out and find another job but they know this is the town and the business where most of those jobs are created.

This announcement has to be huge news for Los Angeles. BUT. You don't think every other facility in the world can do the math? Locations around the world will travel here with every incentive they can muster to attract those film expenditures to their state or their country. Why not do CGI remotely from New Mexico, or go to England for sound stages, or edit off shore,  score the music with the Seattle Orchestra, or use overseas talent and get additional funds? Tax incentives will be guaranteed, financial support will be offered. For every dollar spent on these Bruckheimer films there will be dozens of competitors  willing to offer whatever it takes to move those dollars to their borders or shores.

The dollars are all currently unallocated but  all of them will eventually be spent, but only once. Every job filled will be one time only, every service acquired can't and won't be acquired again, once the money is allocated that's it. It is gone for good.  But every dollar, all hundreds of millions of them, will become available and will be spent, that is the bottom line of the announcement. The money is coming and will flow like a river but for only a short, somewhat predictable, period of time.

The question is will Los Angles be ready to go to the mat to guarantee every dollar spent is spent here in Los Angeles?  Will they step up and fight to keep the jobs here? Will they resist politics to do what is right for this region? Time will tell but if any of these dollars go anywhere else it won't be because the city was caught off guard.