Is This Why L.A. Is Losing So Many Movie Productions?

Director John Stalberg, Jr. wanted to shoot the sequel to his 2023 hit “Muzzle” in Los Angeles.

Badly.

The saga is set in the City of Angels, and Stalberg craved the city’s authentic spirit.

He ended up filming most of “Muzzle: City of Wolves” in South Africa instead. The reasons why TV shows and films are fleeing the city.

Stalberg told The Hollywood in Toto Podcast how his L.A. plans initially collapsed. It’s a story likely shared by other indie filmmakers.

“It comes down to making the best movie possible,” Stalberg explained in a withering screed against the status quo. “When they say to me, ‘when you shoot it in L.A.’ [think] the crazy amount of permit fees, the bureaucracy, the logistical nightmare, the unions, frankly, who are just committing highway robbery on productions left and right and really spooking everyone off to run elsewhere when they mandate you pay these exhorbitant bonds and then they won’t return them.”

The New York Times shared the sad news about L.A. movie production decline earlier this year.

Productions have been filmed outside the United States for decades, but rarely has Hollywood work been so bustling overseas at a time when work in Hollywood itself has been so scant. Studios in European countries are bursting at the seams, industry workers say. And film and television production in Los Angeles is down by more than one-third over the past 10 years, according to FilmLA data.

Stahlberg got crafty to bring some L.A. flavor to his “Muzzle” films, using “splinter units” to capture local footage for the saga.

“I just drove around with my cinematographer and we jumped out of the car and we filmed the police precinct,” he said regarding the “Muzzle” franchise. That process led to some curious blowback.

“Some criticism was like, ‘Oh, he’s putting homeless people shooting up on the police precinct. That’s the fakest thing I’ve ever seen.’ That was just me filming the police precinct,” he said. “It’s all real.”

“Now, I’m trying to match that [to the South African-shot footage],” he added.

Moving the sequel outside of California had other benefits.

“Instead of getting 18 days to shoot [in L.A.], or 15 with no rebates, I get 30 days to shoot [in South Africa] … that allows me to make a vastly better film,” he said.

The “City of Wolves” production found the filmmaker trying to recreate elements of L.A. from thousands of miles away. That created its own curious conflict.

“Take me to the worst slums in Africa because I need to double for L.A.,” he said to his local film crew. “To my shock and horror, they weren’t bad enough, so I had to bring in tents into these shanty towns in Africa.”

You can hear the entire interview, including the finer points of K9 cops on and off screen, on the Hollywood in Toto Podcast.

 

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