Over the past week, as eight wildfires destroyed vast portions of its home metropolis, Hollywood found itself violently impacted — and, at the same time, barely impacted at all.
With thousands of homes destroyed, many of them in neighborhoods favored by producers, executives, agents and stars, and roughly 300,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings, little work got done at studio headquarters. Some studios closed entirely, and others encouraged employees to work remotely.
Consider the impact of the fires on Disney alone. As of Monday, 64 Disney employees had lost their homes and hundreds more had been evacuated, including Robert A. Iger, the chief executive, and three members of his senior leadership team.
Mr. Iger has been overseeing Disney’s relief effort from a hotel, approving $15 million for community services and rebuilding efforts, arranging for Disney employees who have lost their homes to receive two months of free furnished housing and opening Disney’s studio wardrobe warehouses to employees who need clothes and shoes. He has also been calling Disney employees who lost their homes.
“I want them to know that people at the top of the company are looking after them, that we care,” Mr. Iger said by phone on Monday. “We’re going to go through some really tough times here, but we’ll get through it together.”
Meanwhile, Disney’s movie assembly lines — like the rest of Hollywood’s — have been almost completely unaffected.
Disney has seen some flurries of ash on its Burbank lot, but no flames. Pixar and Lucasfilm, both owned by Disney, are based in Northern California.
Sony Pictures is in Culver City, far from any of the fires. Paramount Pictures and Netflix are in Hollywood, the neighborhood, which is 40 minutes by car from the two biggest fires. The sprawling Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures lots in the San Fernando Valley have been untouched.
For the most part, live-action movies are no longer shot in the Los Angeles region. It’s too expensive. Instead, movie production has moved to states like Georgia, New York, New Jersey and New Mexico and countries like Britain and Australia — all of which offer generous tax incentives.
Only two movies from major studios were affected by the fires. Filming was halted on “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” a 20th Century Studios remake of the 1992 thriller. The third “Avatar” movie, also from 20th Century, which Disney owns, briefly paused production, too.
Universal, Sony, Lionsgate, Legendary Entertainment, Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount and Warner Bros. had no movies shooting in Los Angeles over the past week.
“It has become a business where the edifices are based in Los Angeles, but much of the work happens in other places — and that in itself raises questions as people try to rebuild their lives,” said Terry Press, a veteran movie marketer and a past president of CBS Films.
“If you are a craftsman in the industry, if you’re crew, why would you rebuild here?” she said. “Wouldn’t you go to where the work is? And what will that mean for the vibrancy of this community?”
IATSE, a union representing camera operators, makeup artists, prop makers, set dressers, lighting technicians, hairstylists, cinematographers and other craftspeople, said on Monday that roughly 8,000 members live in parts of Los Angeles that been burned or evacuated.
Some film people, including a few studio executives who have lost everything, have been pushing for a quick return to business as usual — including resuming red carpet premieres and campaigns for the Oscars. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday extended the nominee voting period until the end of this week; the ceremony will take place on March 2 as planned.
But others questioned a “show must go on” approach.
“We have to ask ourselves: How do we as a business respond to real catastrophe?” Ms. Press said. “Thoughts and prayers and, by the way, my gown is by Gucci?”
She added, “The decision to be made is whether we protect the image or whether we set an example that mirrors the best storytelling by demonstrating empathy, leadership, compassion and heroism.”
Hollywood has become experienced at soldiering forward. The fires follow the pandemic and two strikes that shut down production for months, not to mention streaming-era upheaval.
Over the past week, however, Hollywood has at times seemed unsure of how to handle itself. Guilds representing screenwriters and producers postponed awards-related announcements; guilds representing directors and actors went ahead with theirs as planned. Most premieres were canceled, but some promotional efforts awkwardly continued.
“It feels surreal/strange/(can’t totally find the right word),” Gabby Windey, a contestant on “The Traitors,” wrote on Instagram on Thursday while promoting the reality show’s premiere that night “as I’m evacuated from my home.”
Hollywood trade publications sometimes covered the fires and routine industry news in the same breath. “LA Fires Rage; Jeremy Strong Q&A; Reba McEntire’s New Role” was a headline in a newsletter from one trade outlet.
Most studios were open on Monday, and production restarted on TV shows like “NCIS,” “Hacks” and “Happy’s Place,” an NBC comedy starring Ms. McEntire.
But Disney’s offices in the Los Angeles area remained closed. “One of the reasons that we’re closed today, when many have gone back to their offices and children are back at school, is that we wanted to ensure that our employees, especially those with children, just had a moment,” Sonia Coleman, Disney’s chief human resources officer, said by phone.
Roadside Attractions, a film distribution company, canceled the premiere it had planned for “The Last Showgirl,” which stars Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis, but went forward with the release. The film, directed by Gia Coppola, collected $1.5 million over the weekend in North America, where it played on 870 screens.
“We’re celebrating it at the same time as we are horrified by what’s happening,” Howard Cohen, a Roadside founder, told Deadline. “It’s the definition of mixed emotions.”
Nicole Sperling contributed reporting.
