Georgia Film Office, Lee Thomas Talks About Production Volume and Outlook for Georgia

The Georgia Film Office says 245 film and television productions in Georgia spent a combined .3 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June. That’s down by nearly half from the same period in 2022. Georgia’s situation isn’t unique. Global and national film and television production are down sharply from 2023. Lee Thomas, director of the Georgia Film Office, spoke to GPB’s Orlando Montoya about the decline and why she’s confident in the industry’s future in Georgia.

Orlando Montoya: Lee, production is a long way off from the heady days, from before the pandemic and before the writers/directors/actors’ strike. Are those the main factors behind this drop or do you see other reasons behind it?

Lee Thomas: Yeah, I think that, y’know, a series of things happened. I mean, y’know, coming out of the pandemic, Georgia was one of the first to reopen. And so we saw some of the traffic that was slated to go to other states end up in Georgia. We also saw a pent-up demand, y’know, of all of the streaming services trying to keep up with the demand of the viewership. And we also saw they were all kind of beefing up their slates. There’s a big competition for a while with a lot of the streaming services trying to beef up their libraries and create as much content as they could. And then it all came crashing down.

Orlando Montoya: With the writer’s strike.

Lee Thomas: That’s right, I think at that time we saw a lot of our, especially our best clients that they were to try to avoid what potentially could have been another work stoppage. They were looking at overseas markets where they felt like they would be immune to it.

Orlando Montoya: Now do you see the current downturn as an anomaly or was the 2018-2022 boom an anomaly?

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