Santa Monica Has a “Difficult” Rep. Its New Film Office Is Working On It

Venice Beach may host Fox’s Baywatch, a reboot that’s become a symbol for Los Angeles’ attempt to keep big, splashy broadcast shows shooting in Hollywood’s historic home. Now Santa Monica, perhaps fittingly, has its own symbolic project as Nancy Meyers’ next film Paris Paramount has shot on-location in the city. Meyers’ team was said to have approached Santa Monica two years ago when it was a Netflix project (where its budget ask of $130 million-$150 million proved a sticking point at the streamer). Last December, the director’s team reached out to the film office about the project, which eventually shot for about a week at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows, transforming it into a slice of the South of France. The feature, which landed at Warner Bros., then added on two additional permits, filming at locations including the CitiBank building. The project is said to be on its way to being the largest production in the city’s history. Drawing Meyers’ ensemble romantic comedy to the Westside is key to Santa Monica’s strategy to court the entertainment industry. The team behind its new film office knows that it has work to do — and that the city had a less-than-sterling reputation as a shooting destination. “We entered this process fully aware that Santa Monica had developed a reputation as a difficult and expensive place to film,” says Misti Kerns, President/CEO at Santa Monica Travel & Tourism, in a statement. “With city leadership and SMTT’s background in hospitality, tourism and destination marketing, we believed we could streamline the permitting process, provide a higher level of customer service and more effectively market Santa Monica as a film friendly destination. Most importantly, we saw an opportunity to begin changing that reputation.” What sparked the move, not incidentally, was a Warner Bros. tentpole that happened to be filming in Santa Monica — without the tourism board even knowing about it until it after the fact. That was billion-dollar grosser Barbie, which shot there during the pandemic, including in front of City Hall. That Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie movie, which became a pop culture sensation in 2023, sparked a change. In September 2025, Santa Monica broke away from L.A. and launched its own office, Film Santa Monica, to issue film permits, coordinate with studios and collect the fees associated with permitting itself. After a year in business, the city’s film office shared data for the first time with The Hollywood Reporter on how progress has gone so far. That includes 235 total applications across all categories, including 21 feature film applications and 24 permits for episodic television projects. Of those features, the office has said that one of the first to apply was David Fincher’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel starring Brad Pitt. (The film used the California incline for establishing shots for single day plate van shoot for a merge onto Pacific Coast Highway.) Recently, Netflix’s 13 Going on 30 reboot, from director Brett Haley and exec producer Jennifer Garner, also filmed scenes in the city. In its first year, location fees alone generated $1.6 million in revenue directly to the city, the film office tells THR. The data is illustrative of what Santa Monica is being sought after for now (photography campaigns are the biggest category, and the city office says it hosted shoots for H&M, Anne Klein and a Lay’s Potato Chip World Cup campaign) as well as the categories it hopes to grow, namely features and episodic TV. On that front, Apple TV’s The Morning Show filmed earlier this year in the city and shot in a beach lot that was transformed into an airport scene at night, while Netflix’s Lincoln Lawyer filmed on Third Street Promenade, the film office says. Even Fox’s Baywatch, which is mostly working with the city of L.A., filmed a few days on Santa Monica’s beaches with lifeguard scenes and main cast members. The Santa Monica Film office received a three-year contract from the city council last year and set up a three-person team (COO Evan Edwards and film permit coordinators Jenna Kirkeeng and Ashlyn Martin) through the non-profit Santa Monica Travel & Tourism, led by Kerns. Previously Santa Monica had outsourced this work to FilmLA, the major regional permitting office that offers quarterly updates on movie, TV and commercial shoot days that have been closely followed as a regular health check on production activity. (FilmLA and permitting agency PPS had both put in bids for the contract, but Santa Monica went with its affiliated tourism unit last year.) In the older workflow, the city had required that projects speak with multiple city agencies to secure permits. The pitch from the new permit office is that filmmakers can work with a one-stop shop. Since it took over from FilmLA last September, Santa Monica’s shoots — even if a small portion of the overall picture — don’t count toward the larger L.A. shoot day total that’s closely watched by the studios, soundstage operators, film commissioners and local officials. And that overall figure has been on a downward trend for the past several years as episode counts get shaved on series and major studios place fewer overall bets on movies or shows annually. The total of 235 permits that it processed is also a small slice of what L.A. processes in a typical year. That number is 8,891 permits for filming across all L.A. jurisdictions in calendar year 2025, a rep for the non-profit filming office FilmLA tells THR. Of those shoot days, about 10 percent of the film activity FilmLA coordinates is feature-based. By the same back-of-the-napkin math, it would appear that roughly holds true for Santa Monica as well, as far as its 21 features shooting in the city over its first year. While Santa Monica Pier and Palisades Park are global icons, the city has had a tough time reviving its entertainment district, Third Street Promenade, since at least the pandemic, as major retailers have abandoned locations. The pier and beach locations have been the highest sought after locations in the first year, the film office notes, but it’s proving a challenge as the Santa Monica pier bridge has been under construction since 2025 with plans to compete that before the Summer Olympics in 2028. The city’s efforts to burnish credentials as an entertainment destination have seen mixed results, as well (see: the canceled Ocean Way Festival in September that was planned as its big beachfront foray into a live event franchise). But the Santa Monica Film office is betting that by taking control of its own direction, vs. outsourcing the process, it can move things in the right direction for its studio and filmmaker partners. That has included industry-centric events, including sponsoring the annual Location Managers Guild International Awards, which were held at BroadStage in Santa Monica on Aug. 22. “Having worked as a performer, I understand that what audiences eventually see on screen is only possible because of an enormous amount of work taking place behind the scenes,” notes film office COO Edwards, who transitioned from a career as a traveling stand-up comedian to working with the city for nearly 15 years. “We want filmmakers to know that Santa Monica respects that work and that they have a team here invested in helping them succeed.”