CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[emathias]

Originally Posted by sentinel

There's a reason production was down in 2017: the Teamsters exec who was trying to shakedown the folks at Cinespace has film/tv executives legitmiately pulling back and questioning whether or not more productions should be filmed here in the future..
https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-pol...n-t-coli-sr-charged-in-extortion-scheme/

My best friend works on a top 10 tv show that has filmed here for the past four seasons (I've had the privilege of visiting the set a couple of times, and am very familiar with how the business operates), and he and the entire crew of his show, as well as the 4-5 other shows still filming here are REALLY worried that LA production companies are starting to bypass Chicago for Toronto, because there are no new shows committed to filming here in 2018 and beyond - just (maybe) a couple of pilots and possibly (big question mark) one film, compared to multiple films just a couple of years ago.

Entertainment execs are not saints by any means, but even the filthiest of film/tv bosses don't want to be involved with greedy sleazeball union pigs, like with what happened at Cinespace. If nothing new in the development pipeline is announced within the next month or so, then 2018 is gonna be a relatively lean year....and 2019 is probably gonna be worse, sadly.

This is exactly why unions have such a bad reputation with the general public anymore. Even people who believe in the positive aspects of unions are loath to have to defend them in the face of this sort of terrible scenario.