Rob Lowe Breaks Down How Filming Internationally Is Cheaper Than Filming in LA

Last week, we covered some changes California is making to make filming here cheaper. Well, those changes are not happening fast enough. Recently, Adam Scott joined Rob Lowe on his podcast. The two Parks and Rec alum got chatting about their current projects. It turns out, Rob Lowe's game show, The Floor, shoots in Ireland because it's cheaper to fly people there than it is to shoot in LA. That sucks, and it's killing the industry in Hollywood. At around the 4-minute mark of this video, Rob Lowe discusses how the filming system in Los Angeles was broken. Take a look and let's talk after. - YouTube www.youtube.com The main takeaway of this video is just how staggeringly bad it is working in Los Angeles right now. As Rob Lowe says, it is cheaper to take 100 people and put them up in Ireland than it is to shoot on the Fox Lot. And while they joke about shooting Parks and Rec in Budapest if they did it now, there's an extremely high chance they would shoot it on sound stages in London. Both of these guys are in projects currently shooting in Ireland, which has great film incentives and rebates. And Lowe talked about how he was on a project that he couldn't go to New York for, which just died immediately because it was so prohibitively expensive to do it in LA, where the actor lives. Another thing they talk about is how all the Los Angeles sound stages are completely empty. We have an entire infrastructure built around making things here but without the government passing laws and building in tax credits that at least equal other places, we've completely priced productions and people out of being able to shoot and live here. I was able to dig up some numbers about what's shooting where across the globe and how much money is being spent, and the results were staggering. According to ProdPro’s 2025 TV & Film Outlook Report, the United States still leads the way with $14.5 billion spent here. But that's down -26% from 2022. And those numbers will continue to drop if our incentives do not get better. Let me know what you think of all this in the comments.

Mar 24, 2025 - 19:39

Rob Lowe Breaks Down How Filming Internationally Is Cheaper Than Filming in LA

Last week, we covered some changes California is making to make filming here cheaper. Well, those changes are not happening fast enough.

Recently, Adam Scott joined Rob Lowe on his podcast. The two Parks and Rec alum got chatting about their current projects. It turns out, Rob Lowe's game show, The Floor, shoots in Ireland because it's cheaper to fly people there than it is to shoot in LA.

That sucks, and it's killing the industry in Hollywood.

At around the 4-minute mark of this video, Rob Lowe discusses how the filming system in Los Angeles was broken.

Take a look and let's talk after.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The main takeaway of this video is just how staggeringly bad it is working in Los Angeles right now. As Rob Lowe says, it is cheaper to take 100 people and put them up in Ireland than it is to shoot on the Fox Lot.

And while they joke about shooting Parks and Rec in Budapest if they did it now, there's an extremely high chance they would shoot it on sound stages in London.

Both of these guys are in projects currently shooting in Ireland, which has great film incentives and rebates. And Lowe talked about how he was on a project that he couldn't go to New York for, which just died immediately because it was so prohibitively expensive to do it in LA, where the actor lives.

Another thing they talk about is how all the Los Angeles sound stages are completely empty. We have an entire infrastructure built around making things here but without the government passing laws and building in tax credits that at least equal other places, we've completely priced productions and people out of being able to shoot and live here.

I was able to dig up some numbers about what's shooting where across the globe and how much money is being spent, and the results were staggering.

According to ProdPro’s 2025 TV & Film Outlook Report, the United States still leads the way with $14.5 billion spent here.

But that's down -26% from 2022.

And those numbers will continue to drop if our incentives do not get better.

Let me know what you think of all this in the comments.