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With Film Production Down, Is the Sun Setting on the Hollywood Dream?

In the past five years, the whirlwind effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2008 and 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes, the advent of AI, and productions filming outside of California and the greater U.S. have meant that the glamorous “Hollywood” industry has become more of an ideal rather than a physical setting.

By Nya Manneh, Ashley Shaubzada, Laury Li, Erika Taylor, and Emily Geigh Nichols

1:16 PM PDT on September 2, 2025

A woman poses in front of the Hollywood sign, but is blurry

A woman poses in front of the Hollywood sign on July 14, 2025. Credit: ERIKA TAYLOR

After working nearly 27 years in Hollywood, props master Joe Connolly was just two years shy of retirement when the sun set on his dream.

Wearing a plain white tee, hair peppered with gray, Connolly sat upstairs in his North Carolina home and beamed with pride as he detailed his extraordinary Hollywood career. However, in the past 17 years, Connolly mentioned that his career has undergone a dramatic change.

“I’m currently working as a deckhand on a ferry, one of the Outer Banks ferries,” Connolly said. “I love the ocean. I love boats. And the pay is about 3% of what I normally make, but it gets me on the water, it keeps me sane, and I don’t bring my work home at night.”