The Inexplicable Suicide of Hollywood

CULTURE

A Hollywood Insider Reveals What No One Else Will

By Coast Enjoyer · June 17, 2026 · 13 min read

In yesterday’s big Variety piece, Gene Maddaus depicted Hollywood’s downfall in excruciating detail, analogizing it to the deterioration of Detroit after car manufacturing left. He hinges the decline on a single image: LA’s bungling of the return of Fox’s Baywatch reboot, now shooting on Venice Beach, which had been heralded by Gavin Newsom as the triumphant return of TV production to California.

After shooting began, Baywatch quickly became mired in red tape and high costs, and threatened to leave. Public pressure helped clear some hurdles, but any less iconic show would’ve left long ago.

Maddaus, being a mainstream journalist, rattles off all the acceptable explanations. California’s failure to compete with production incentives of other states. California’s harsh environmental and labor regulations. Even California’s bureaucratic incompetence. But of course he never mentions the real reason, which is the mentality behind all of these superficial causes. That Hollywood isn’t dying of old age or infirmity. It’s killing itself.

Summer 2023. Senior leadership of the show called a confidential emergency meeting to discuss how our production could navigate the strikes. It had taken me a decade to get a job on one of the most storied franchises in TV history. We met in one of our satellite offices, away from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA members striking with their carefully-crafted signs, at the main entrances of every major studio lot.

The timing of the strike couldn’t possibly be worse. Despite local officials’ best efforts, Los Angeles residents seemed ready to finally put COVID and its total shut down of film productions in the past. Over 80,000 Hollywood jobs were lost; many friends hadn’t sniffed their Hollywood dreams since. And yet here the union leaders were shutting it down again.

The 2023 strikes threw napalm on the already flailing industry and showed how the overwhelming groupthink of entertainment industry workers has led it to its own demise. Over 97% of union members voted in favor of the longest work stoppage in Hollywood’s history. The social pressure to support the strikes was palpable. Union spokesman Adam Conover righteously delivered daily diatribes, giving marching orders and explaining union demands that often didn’t make much sense. With three years of hindsight, it is apparent that many of the negotiated “wins” by the unions did not result in saving the jobs of writers and actors as Conover had promised. Safeguards against AI, writers’ room minimums, and viewership bonuses can’t right the ship when productions are struggling to even get made at all.

California has lost over 51,000 production jobs in the last three years alone. Ratings are lower than ever. What once would have gotten a series cancelled or a franchise shelved is now considered a massive success. Network tentpoles like NCIS have seen their viewership plummet from 19.3 million viewers at its peak in 2013 to barely over 3.2 million viewers in 2023, numbers that made it the third-most watched broadcast show that year. Avoiding demoralization, Nielsen changed its ratings system, shifting towards minutes watched rather than raw viewership. In a few years, you’ll need to go on YouTube to get your dose of sanctimonious speeches from the Oscars.

Why is this happening? If you ask the Hollywood faithful, you won’t get a singular explanation. You’ll hear anything from “people wait for things to come out on streaming” to "studios are dumbing down movies for dumber audiences.” They’ll inevitably blame “capitalism” and even the audience, but they will never blame their own failure to produce anything worth paying for to watch. My friend was a director for Jimmy Kimmel, a straight white guy who has since moved on to independent productions, a choice he’s assured me was his own. He’s a major drinker of the Hollywood Kool-Aid, one reason for his ability to rise in the ranks. He’s published in McSweeney’s and the New Yorker, and has had social media posts go viral among the right crowds. He’s seen success people would kill for. And he’s been unemployed since the 2023 strike.

Other naive explanations passed across the dinner table: oversaturation of shows, fatigue of certain genres (“superhero fatigue”), not enough original content being made, the economy, too many streaming sites, streaming sites costing too much, the collapse of monoculture, the rise of monoculture, social media, YouTube snatching eyeballs, not enough diversity in front of the camera, not enough diversity behind the camera, not understanding the modern audience, “toxic fandoms,” shorter attention spans, too many movies above three hours, too few mid-budget movies, no more DVD market, too much consolidation, shrinking theatrical windows, not cooperating with unions enough, cooperating with unions too much, the end of residuals and back-end profit, refinement culture, enshittification, overregulation, not enough tax incentives, the too high cost of living in Los Angeles, and of course AI.

To be fair, there really isn’t one single cause, but the ones you don’t hear are probative. You’ll never hear that the content just sucks; that we just haven’t been producing entertainment that’s widely enjoyed. And that we’re willing to let Hollywood die before re-focusing from politics and morals to art and commerce.

On rare occasions, you can get a glimpse at internal data. In a break from conformity, Disney made public that they were desperate to attract young men back to the brand. The announcement came as a shock and resulted in pushback from employees. This sheds light on how much they devalued the golden goose of Lucasfilm and Marvel. Most of the industry will remain in denial, but you can feel an inkling of understanding rising under bouts of lashing out in hatred of the very audience they rely on to survive.

During my time at film school, I was forced to pledge to use any opportunity I’d have working in the film industry to support and promote women. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Two decades in, it’s clear how much this sort of indoctrination has shaped the landscape. During the mid-2010s, the generation raised on this ideology hit critical mass. The days of being firebrands raging against the machine were over. The Liz Lemons and Lisa Simpsons were handed the reins by the Jack Donaghys and Mr. Burnses. They were running the factories for the first time. We were told it was simply their turn, a Boomer belief still parroted in the political sphere. But qualia overtook quality.

#OscarsSoWhite in 2015 forced the Academy to change the makeup of their membership, creating racial quota criteria for nominated films. The #MeToo movement in 2017 shifted focus from the production of crowd-pleasing making-projects, to projects deemed “important.” The revolution purged some very deserving abusive and ill behaved men and women, but also others who didn’t actually commit crimes, and who found themselves the subject of whisper campaigns and on lists of “Shitty Media Men” created by jealous, talentless journalists whose only contribution to media and culture is whining endlessly.

During this time, arguing about due process was deemed beyond the pale. Laying low became a skill. The revolutionaries saw their power and control proliferate. Every major studio somehow became beholden to the whims of some obscure administrator at San Diego State University, and suddenly, no project would be greenlit unless it met certain quotas in front of and behind the camera. People with no experience dictated terms. This was “important” and the “right thing to do.” Men were purged for the sake of being men.

It was commonplace to hear agents, managers, and executives say they couldn’t take on a client or hire someone because they were a white man. Absolutely everyone had these stories, and many shared text messages of brazen internal memos or Slack chats declaring the discrimination, but absolutely nobody had the balls to do anything about it.

The old model of profitability used to be “one for them, one for me,” meaning profitable productions made for mass consumption could help float less profitable projects with social messaging. But that wisdom was thrown out, instead replaced with industry wide purity tests. Zero for them, all for me. The grand irony is of course that, as Hollywood productions fall, so too does the amount of available jobs for the women and “minorities” that the activist class purports to advocate on behalf of. But they would rather go down with the ship than admit any fault. Hollywood’s new guard proved that, if given the choice between a robust, diverse, and profitable industry, or a monolithic, politically correct, quota-meeting industry, they will choose industrial suicide simply because the former helps white men.

In late February of 2026, Netflix announced it was pulling out of its attempt to purchase Warner Brothers, paving the way for Paramount and David Ellison to merge the two century-old studios. David Zaslav spent four years as the most hated executive in Hollywood, acting as hatchet man at Warner Bros., priming and pruning the company for its eventual sale, so you’d think the consensus reaction would be positive, no matter whether Netflix or Paramount won the bidding war. That has not been the case. Ellison has been greeted by hostility and skepticism despite his pledge to produce at least 30 films per year for theaters (something Netflix would not have done). It would be logical for actors, writers, directors, and production staff to be happy to resume business as usual. It would be logical to believe that beggars can’t be choosers, and that replacing Zaslav, who was brought in specifically to cut debt, would be met with relief, but that wasn’t the case. The news triggered a backlash.

Former Hollywood Reporter editor Matt Belloni worried it would result in mass layoffs, only to be rebuffed by the fact that every major studio was already doing layoffs; a month later Disney laid off 1,000 employees. Elizabeth Warren announced she was going to fight the merger, and 4,000 Hollywood professionals signed a petition opposing it. Did they not get the memo? Hollywood is dying. Surely now is not the time to fight whoever is willing to invest money in more production, right? They’re willing to cut off their nose despite their heavily botoxed, nipped and tucked faces. Entertainment media rooted for Netflix because CEO Ted Sarandos was on their side. The idea of the largest global streamer absorbing a major theatrical studio and almost surely reducing the number of movies in theaters was a concern they were willing to overlook. As long as it was the company that paid the Obamas $65 million for their now departed partnership, they’re happy.

We’re now nearly halfway through 2026. The Paramount/Warner Bros. merger seems set to go through. The WGA leadership avoided another strike, making major concessions to extend the deal for four years. Bob Iger finally resigned as CEO of Disney with little fanfare. The heads of Disney Animation and Lucasfilm have been replaced. Unlike other domestic industries that have been killed by offshoring, importing, and international competition, there isn’t really an easy substitute for Hollywood productions. Even as the country has become more diverse than ever, and despite the best efforts from entertainment media and awards shows, foreign films do not perform well domestically. So, while the domestic auto industry can be decimated while Americans still buy cars, the fall of the domestic entertainment industry just leaves a gaping hole.

It’s been a few months since I’ve seen my old director friend. He’s “Open to Work” on LinkedIn. My parents are still sending me passive aggressive texts, the most recent being about the mass layoffs at Disney, but that’s the only one this month. The ladder-pullers are in their twilight years. My senior production managers seem slightly less woke, but totally unwilling to acknowledge that any vibe shift has occurred. A once big power player and union organizer on our staff was let go for no apparent reason, and nobody seemed to care very much.

That hollow prize handed down to a generation of film school grads who were supposed to make important work is looking less appealing as the rats are jumping ship.

Soon, the major studios will have tortured the last remaining IP carcasses—which provided some hedge against the politics they shoehorned into them—to death. There are no sure things in Hollywood, and the more the studios heads enable the activist class to chisel away at the foundation of profit generating franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs, Scooby Doo, Ghostbusters, Snow White, Indiana Jones, the sooner they fall, nay jump, off the cliff.

Since starting this article, Hollywood has experienced a summer blockbuster phenomenon with the success of two thrillers, Obsession, an indie produced by a YouTuber making over $230 million on a budget of $750,000 and Backrooms, a larger indie distributed by A24 making $118 million on a $10 million budget and directed by twenty-year-old. Audiences showed up to theaters for these two movies while shunning a $165 million Disney Star Wars movie released at the same time. These two successes have been a glimmer of hope, proving that there can still be profitability in Hollywood. Meanwhile, entertainment media and California politicians are still scrambling to at least look like they care about keeping the industry afloat. While California Senator Adam Schiff begs for federal assistance, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom have feebly tried to save face when even a Baywatch reboot ran into difficulties filming in Los Angeles, where the show is set. And they only sprang into action after former mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt brought attention to the issue. But, while this may be one step forward, Hollywood is poised to take two steps back, voting to approve three tax increases during the June primary.

My friend and I still get together, but less frequently than before. I started a family. He broke up with his long term girlfriend. When we talk about the state of the industry, the cause of it all dances around the elephant sitting in our laps. We blame the economy (true), broken viewing habits (also true), and the threat of social media (overstated), but never a simple drop in quality. And certainly never what’s caused that drop in quality. Last time we met up, we went to Nate ‘n Al’s. “Nobody wants to go to the movies because of the oil prices,” was his latest hot take.