California issues guidelines that could see movie and TV filming resume as early as next week
Hollywood is currently facing something of a ticking clock in terms of content production, as every moment the industry remains in lockdown is one second closer to the point where it’ll have to finally give in and release The New Mutants into the world. In the interest of averting that particular darkest timeline, California governor Gavin Newsom issued guidelines today that might see filming in the state resume as soon as June 12—subject to local conditions and industry negotiations, either of which could keep critical Los Angeles County out of production for quite a bit longer than that.
Handed down earlier today by the state’s Department of Public Health, the guidelines basically state that California will allow filming to resume—provided studios abide by regulations and restrictions established between labor and management. Furthermore, individual counties and regions are allowed to modify the timeline of re-opening, provided they have plans in place in case COVID-19 cases or hospitalizations begin to increase. Los Angeles county does, as it happens—but it’s also seen an uptick in hospitalizations from the disease in the last few days. (For those of you whose minds are as mushy as ours are in the wake of the all-purpose and ongoing social, political, and spiritual upheaval that is 2020, the whole point of the lockdowns has been to keep hospitalizations from coronavirus cases down to the level that America’s wobbly healthcare system can conceivably cope with them.)
Production guilds and studios are reportedly still hammering out what actual policies and precautions to keep their members safe on set will look like, a process the state is apparently taking at least some part in. All of which means that there’s no guarantee that June 12th will actually mark a resumption of non-Zoom-based-production, no matter what state and local governments say—even if the countdown to New Mutants-ageddon looms closer by the day.