Another Hollywood heavyweight is pulling up stakes — with hitmaker J.J. Abrams shifting his production empire as Los Angeles continues to hemorrhage entertainment jobs.
Abrams, 58, the blockbuster filmmaker behind Star Wars, Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, is closing Bad Robot Productions’ Santa Monica office and relocating operations to his new New York home, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
There are also reports of downsizing, with sources describing cuts as “across the board” rather than specific to any one division, per Variety.
The move follows the sale of his long-time Los Angeles headquarters in November for $31 million.
Located steps from the Santa Monica Pier, the office was once packed with hundreds of staff at its peak.
Founded in 1999, Bad Robot has been behind a string of blockbuster films and TV hits, including the Mission: Impossible franchise, multiple Star Wars installments and the 2009 Star Trek reboot.
On the TV side, its credits include Lost, Alias, Westworld and Person of Interest.
In 2018, the company launched a gaming division, with its website noting teams are “fully remote” and focused on reinventing interactive storytelling.
More recently, Bad Robot has shifted toward smaller-scale projects, including Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent and HBO Max’s Duster, which ran for one season.
In 2024, the company extended its long-running partnership with Warner Bros, first signed in 2006 — but the latest agreement is a more modest, non-exclusive first-look deal, a step down from the nine-figure pact struck in 2019.
The shake-up is the latest blow to Los Angeles’ once-dominant film and TV industry, which critics warn is sliding into a “Detroit-style” decline.
Film and TV employment has plunged by about 30% since 2022, according to U.S. Labor Department data cited by The Wall Street Journal.
At a March congressional hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff warned Los Angeles County has lost 42,000 entertainment jobs in just two years.
“These are great jobs and we want to keep them here at home,” Schiff said. “It’s not rocket science how we do that. It’s largely drafted. It needs to be bipartisan. We are working to gather bipartisan support for this.”
Rising production costs have pushed studios to film elsewhere, with New York, New Jersey, Canada and Hungary offering tax incentives and cheaper production options.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year approved a $750 million tax credit program aimed at keeping productions in-state, but industry experts say it has failed to stem the exodus.
Schiff noted that even with the incentives, film activity in Los Angeles was still down 13.2% from July through September 2024 compared with the same period the year prior.
The Post has reached out to Bad Robot Productions for comment.
