Hollywood luminaries are asking their industry colleagues to #StayinLA — a hashtag and a calling — while urging California’s government to improve tax incentives for the entertainment industry.

A petition by the #StayinLA campaign has raised more than 15,000 signatures in just five days, and includes stars and industry leaders including Keanu Reeves, Rian Johnson, Bette Midler, Patty Jenkins, Joey King, Zooey Deschanel, Joshua Jackson, Olivia Wilde, Alex Winter, Kevin Bacon, Connie Britton, Charlie Hunnam, Sian Heder and Jason Reitman.

“The fires remind us that we are nothing without each other,” says Sarah Adina Smith, who conceived the plan and organized the petition with fellow filmmaker Alexandra Pechman. “Los Angeles is like no place else on Earth because of the people who live here — but they can’t afford to stay and rebuild without jobs.” 

The pair worked with about 30 filmmakers and showrunners, including Nick Antosca, Julie Plec, Michael Suscy, and Alex Winter, partnering with in partnership with CA UNITED, a film and TV group dedicated to keeping productions in California.

“I’ve been a proud Angeleno for most of my adult life and have rarely been able to film in my hometown with the highly skilled crew that lives here,” says Winter, who starred with Reeves in the Bill & Ted films. “My latest feature film was just shot and posted in Canada. Their robust rebate was the only way to make our budget work.”

The coalition calls for the state to uncap the state’s tax incentive program — currently capped at $330 million per year — for the next three years for projects that shoot in Los Angeles County.

#StayinLA is also calling on studios and streamers to pledge to increase local production by at least 10 percent in that time.

Film Incentives Before #StayinLA

California’s current film tax incentive program is among the largest in the country, but Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed in November, before the fires, to raise the cap to $750 million, which would make California the top state for capped film incentive programs.

It would leapfrog competitors like New York, where the tax credit is funded at $700 million a year through 2034.

Los Angeles was already struggling before the fires, as Covid shutdowns and last year’s strikes slowed production in the nation’s film capital.

According to FilmLA, which coordinates film permits in Los Angeles, 2024 saw a 5.6 percent decline in production from the previous year, despite an uptick in production in the last quarter of the year. 2024 was also the second least productive year on record, according to the non-profit group; the only less productive year was 2020, when Covid shut down most productions.

Also Read: How to Help L.A. Firefighters and Evacuees

The full impact of the fires remains to be seen, though the Los Angeles Times notes that they are likely to increase costs in many ways, and to hit Los Angeles-based workers the hardest. Caterers, for example, can’t usually just follow a production to Atlanta or Vancouver.

Below is a list of signees to the petition, provided by #StayinLA.

Actors:

Keanu Reeves

Kevin Bacon

Jane Levy

Bette Midler

Connie Britton

Alison Brie

Allison Janney

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Levar Burton

Julie Benz

Jack Huston

Kyra Sedgwick

Titus Welliver

Richard Kind

Aisha Tylor

Brenda Strong

Paget Brewster

Joshua Jackson

Jake Johnson

Josh Malina

Jeri Ryan

Rosemarie Dewitt

Abbi Jacobson

Troian Bellisario

Scoot McNairy

Garret Dillahunt

Aleksa Palladino

Rachel Bloom

Robin Wright

Kathryn Hahn

Charlie Hunnam

Filmmakers:

Rian Johnson

Olivia Wilde

Sian Heder

Patty Jenkins

Lilly Wachowski

Mike Flanagan

Jeremy Saulnier

Jason Reitman

Greg Yaitanes

Niki Caro

Rachel Morrison

Erin Lee Carr

Cord Jefferson

Destin Daniel Cretton

Kay Cannon

Reed Morano

John Logan

John Hillcoat

Emmanuel Lubezki

Michael Mann

Showrunners:

Francesca Sloane

Jen Statsky

Lucia Aniello

Bryan Fuller

Marlene King

Mara Brock Akil

Nikki Toscano

Ashley Lyle

LaToya Morgan

Liz Tigelaar

Marc Guggenheim

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