California Governor to Reveal Film and TV Production Restart Plans Next Week

The question of when film and television production in California will resume will be answered next week. According to a report from Variety, California Governor Gavin Newsom revealed on Wednesday that the state will issue guidelines to allow productions to start up again in some counties in California on Monday — and it’s possible that some of those productions could restart as soon as next week. The announcement came during a virtual roundtable hosted by Newsom on Wednesday that included industry leaders including director Ava DuVernay and Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos.

Earlier this week it was reported that both Netflix and Amazon will resume production in France soon and in Wednesday’s roundtable, Sarandos reported that they had already resumed productions in South Korea, Sweden, and Iceland, noting that protocols for a safe restart of the industry “can definitely be figured out.”

“The choices that we have to make today are not staying home or not, it really is how do we get back to work safely,” Sarandos said. “It can definitely be figured out. We have the smartest people in the world working on it.”

While Newsom plans to lay out the guidelines on Monday, it still may be some time before the bulk of film and television productions in California are able to resume. While some counties where the coronavirus is more controlled may be allowed to start up sooner than others, Los Angeles County continues to represent the bulk of the state’s cases of COVID-19, making it the largest hurdle to production restarts.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat that,” Newsom’s chief of staff Ann O’Leary said. “We have increasing cases in the L.A. area, and so because of that it is going to have some delays in the Los Angeles region… I don’t want to say that it is going to be a switch on as quickly as it might be in other areas.”

Even as production restarts, however, it may be quite some time before everyone is back up and running. This Is Us star Jon Huertas said that this was a matter of safety first and that production on the show may be delayed as a result.

“We may not go into production until January, depending on whether or not there’s a second wave,” Huertas said. “So much as we’d like to get back online, we are very concerned about our crew as a family — the safety of our crew, the safety of the actors is paramount.”

What do you think about this latest update on the restarting of film and television production? Let us know in the comments below.