The was an attempt to start a movie studio in Utah. It failed miserably.
Movie people are knowledge workers. Knowledge workers move from job to job in the same industry. The is why knowledge firms tend to concentrate. If you want a career in financial services you have to live in and around the New York metro area. You know that if you want to find a better job in another bank or brokerage house you don't have to relocate. And banks and brokerage houses know they have a large skill base to draw on. If you want to work in cutting edge computer design you have to live in a Silicon Valley area. If you want to work in fashion you have to go to New York or Paris or LA.
You could save a ton of money by moving a knowledge firm to the boondocks, but where would you find your employees ? And if your employees would be stuck there because you are their only possible employer. If you want to make the connections that will get your career off the ground and keep you working steadily you have to be where the movers and shakers are.
No. The film industry has to stay where the agents and producers and film crews and casting directors and writers are concentrated.
Anywhere? If you wanted to get into the stale Hollywood film community, then you'd stay in Hollywood. But if you wanted to be able to express yourself and do real creative work without some studio head guiding your hand, you'd go where independent thought flourished.
And if your employees would be stuck there because you are their only possible employer.
Only if nobody follows suit and locates where you did. That wasn't true in Hollywood, why would it be true somewhere new?
If you want to make the connections that will get your career off the ground and keep you working steadily you have to be where the movers and shakers are.
And why does that have to be in Hollywood? Those "movers and shakers" have proven repeatedly that they suck.
There's no need to continue this tautology. Hollywood is not sacred ground. Its product could come from any pipe in any reasonably sized cesspool. And good movies can come from Cottonwood as easily as Hollywood -- more easily in fact, since a new movie community has no shameful legacy to carry forward.