Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by saalweachter on Monday August 03, 2026 @01:38PM
(#49158998)
My understanding is that an important consideration at the time was that it is very far from New Jersey.
Edison had a lot of early patents for film, and wanted to monopolize the industry.
Film makers in California were far enough away that it was inconvenient for Edison to sue them, both because it required sending people there in person, and because the district courts were favorable.
Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by moate on Monday August 03, 2026 @02:16PM
(#49159499)
The irony here being that Netflix is currently in a massive layout to build a studio in NJ (like, 20 minutes from the old Bell Labs). Almost feels like giving that troll the finger!
Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by expedition32 on Monday August 03, 2026 @03:54PM
(#49160608)
A hundred years ago they were practically giving away land in LA. The real estate value has flipped.
Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by moate on Monday August 03, 2026 @05:48PM
(#49161911)
You, uh, you're not from New Jersey are you? I promise you, we're not giving away land around here.
Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by class3shock on Monday August 03, 2026 @10:49PM
(#49163873)
Central NJ (if you believe it exists) is cheaper depending on the particular town but yeah, not being given away by any means.
https://www.zillow.com/home-values/11267/edison-nj/ https://www.zillow.com/home-values/12447/los-angeles-ca/
Might be opposite sides of the country but CA and NJ are lock step when it comes to making it unaffordable for younger generations to buy homes.
Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by newsclues on Monday August 03, 2026 @01:48PM
(#49159126)
Why Hollywood?
Because Edison and Patents in New York which was the original centre for filmmaking in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company...
Re:Hollywood Stopped Making Movies in Hollywood
by stinkyball on Monday August 03, 2026 @05:46PM
(#49161885)
I too have experienced the light of Scunthorpe. ‘The skies reflect our labours’ as they say ;)
Out of the many reasons, one is quite simple: daylight. This used to be really important with film.
Historically, this was why efforts to move filming to somewhere like 'Scunthorpe, UK' didn't really work, despite tax fiddles, because you need light and some places just don't have it.
But this doesn't matter now, because film has moved on, there is no need to have a massive glowing unshielded nuclear fusion reactor, 93 million miles directly overhead, just to get some lens focused on some bits of silver halide.