LA SCREENINGS: From the impact of Trump’s tariff threats to whether studios are providing enough clarity on rights availability, here are some of the key issues likely to dominate conversations as the US studios welcome international buyers to Los Angeles.

Just a few months ago the LA Screenings were in doubt thanks to the California wildfires

Venti Views via Unsplash

Will Trump’s tariff threat mean slower business at the LA Screenings?
While US president Donald Trump’s social post about slapping a 100% tariff on movies made in “foreign lands” continues to destabilise the global content market and dominate industry chatter, it seems unlikely at this stage that it will have a chilling effect on the business that gets done at the LA Screenings. This, after all, is a market focused on international buyers acquiring American programming, which would not be affected by the imposition of tariffs.

But in addition to acquiring content, many of the international execs descending on LA are also sellers and commissioners looking to discuss opportunities for coproductions and selling finished programming into the US. Given Trump’s comments, uncertainty hangs over those types of deals, but it remains unclear what the president intends.

Donald Trump

Library of Congress

Beyond the immediate panic induced by Trump’s Truth Social post, the seeds of chaos sewn could have broader effects on American studios and streamers, as countries across the world gear up to get tough on US-owned corporations amid simmering trade tensions. That was demonstrated earlier this week as more than 100 global organisations in the film and TV space, including France’s European Producers Club, Screen Producers Ireland and the Canadian Media Producers Association, signed an open letter warning of “increasingly aggressive attempts by powerful political and corporate actors to dismantle the regulatory protections that ensure the diversity and accessibility of cultural expression.”

Netflix, in particular, recognises that it could be in some trouble if momentum gathers behind the idea of regulating US-based streaming services internationally. This already happens in several European countries, although quotas and levies have not been applied in key markets including the UK. Netflix would like to keep it that way, which is perhaps why the streamer went to such lengths to discuss its sizeable impact on the UK economy (it says it has invested US$6bn in the country’s creative community since 2020) in its letter to shareholders last month.

Will the political climate mean fewer attendees or decreased international appetite for US shows?
There have been some suggestions that fewer buyers will travel for this year’s LA Screenings, with reasons including fear of detention at the border or airports and, more broadly, not wanting to set foot in Trump’s America amid a rollback in transgender rights and calls to end all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At this stage, C21 has not heard of any key buyers who are opting not to attend the LA Screenings for political reasons, though one UK buyer said they certainly would not be traveling to America unless it was for work.

Canada, of course, has been the country targeted by Trump most often, with his long-running “51st state” rhetoric – comments that flipped the Canadian federal election on its head and helped the once-ailing Liberals to defeat the Conservatives last month.

In terms of the general population, many Canadians are deciding not to travel to the US given the political climate. Indeed, a recent CBC News report said that several American conferences (not related to TV and film) are being forced to relocate north of the border because Canadians refuse to visit the States.

There is always a strong contingent of Canadian buyers at the annual gathering for the LA Screenings, and this year appears to be no different. This is likely emblematic of a few things: Hollywood and Los Angeles are not viewed as being supportive of Trump’s reshaped America, the ties between the American studios and Canadian networks have historically been strong and, perhaps most pertinently, the Canadian broadcasters rely heavily on US programming to attract large audiences and pay top dollar to license the rights.

Despite recent bad feeling over Trump’s rhetoric, Canadian buyers are still bound for LA

Chris Robert via Unsplash

As to whether political unrest could have a negative impact on the international appetite for US programming, that seems unlikely, according to one European buyer. “I think Hollywood is a different thing altogether,” they said. “People won’t all of a sudden not go to a Disney movie because of Donald Trump.”

Discussion about the potential impact of Trump’s international trade war on film and TV has sucked a lot of oxygen out of the room over the past four months, and particularly the last two weeks. US studios will be keen to highlight the strength of the shows and not dwell on the chaotic and messy political backdrop.

Based on the slates that have been announced so far, there will be compelling projects on offer, including NBCUniversal’s The Office US spin-off The Paper, one episode of which will be screened for buyers, and the Jon Hamm-led psychological thriller American Hostage, based on a scripted podcast of the same name and produced by Sony Pictures Television.

California is still recovering from the devastating wildfires that put the Screenings in jeopardy
Given the speed of the news cycle since January, it is easy to overlook the fact that a little over four months ago, large swathes of southern California were ablaze. The rebuild will take years, not months, adding to Hollywood’s struggles as it reels from a shrinking audiences, economic strife and a production exodus from California.

David Decker

The impact of the fires was severe enough that, at one point, there was no guarantee this year’s LA Screenings would take place at all. Several events scheduled for January and February were pushed back or cancelled altogether as local companies were forced to pivot, raising the prospect that the Screenings might be scrapped this year.

But the community has rallied, looking to stage its own Hollywood comeback, and the studios appear determined to put on a show for international buyers. “We’ve all been through a lot, but I think this industry is more resilient than ever,” said David Decker, Warner Bros Discovery’s president of sales. “It was a rough couple of months, but the industry has adapted. We’re looking for another robust marketplace for the LA Screenings.”

Are studios doing a better job of providing clarity over rights availability?
A persistent complaint in recent years was that studios sometimes exhibit shows that have already been earmarked for their global streamers, meaning a project might not be available to license for 12, 18 or sometimes 24 months.

Across the board, however, buyers who have spoken to C21 say the studios are doing a significantly better job at being transparent about the availability shows. “As a buyer, the biggest frustration is when you’ve been led to believe a show is available and then it transpires that an SVoD deal, that wasn’t previously disclosed, has taken it off the table. But honestly, that doesn’t happen all that often,” explains one UK buyer.

Another European buyer says that the contrast in how much content is available at the LA Screenings versus the London TV Screenings is quite stark. “When we go to the London TV Screenings in February, pretty much everything we see there is available to buy,” they say.

“When you go to the LA Screenings, you might go to a Disney screening and they might say everything you’re going to see today will be available 12 months after Disney+. Or you might go to Amazon MGM and everything will be available 18 months after it launches on Prime Video. So in many ways you’ve got to wait a while. That gives you the luxury of waiting to see how it does, but you’re not going to have that instant gratification of being able to do a deal and getting it on air for your autumn schedule.”

Paralysis remains as the Paramount-Skydance deal still hangs in the balance
It is remarkable to think that when the LA Screenings took place last year, one of the dominant conversations was around the potential merger of Paramount Global and Sony. Of course, that deal did not come to fruition, but fast forward 12 months and Paramount Global’s future still remains in limbo.

Skydance’s US$8bn takeover of Paramount has still not been approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with a growing belief that Trump-appointed FCC chairman Brendan Carr is reluctant to rubberstamp the deal while the US president’s lawsuit against Paramount-owned news organisation CBS News is ongoing.

Paramount Global has been treading water since July 2024, when the Skydance deal was initially confirmed. Assuming the deal eventually gets the go ahead, it is believed that it will unlock new and much-needed content investment – not just for Paramount but the Hollywood production sector more broadly.

It will also have potentially significant ramifications for the broadcast networks sitting under Paramount Global, including the UK’s Channel 5, Australia’s Network 10, Chilevisión and Argentina’s Telefe. While the prevailing belief is that the deal will be approved, if it is ultimately blocked, all bets are off.

The question around the LA Screenings Independents
While the final outcome is likely to be similar to recent years, with over 200 buyers registered and more than 60 exhibiting companies confirmed, the 2025 edition of the LA Screenings Independents has seen a rather muted response from the Latin American community.

In an effort to be more accessible, and after more than 60 years in the Century City area, this year the event for independent distributors – which traditionally takes place ahead of the majors’ screenings – will move to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and condense its activity into just two days.

However, tighter budgets among Latin American buyers and a shifting annual events calendar, with a potential move of MipCancun from November to April in 2026, are casting doubt on the event’s future beyond this year.

Lat Am broadcasters relying on fewer acquisitions as they prioritise cost-efficient originals
Like many of their global counterparts, Latin American broadcasters are facing tough times. The dominant trend among the bigger players has been to leverage their production muscle and evolve into studios that supply content both for their own channels and for third parties.

The result? On one hand, there’s being a noticeable rise in original production of cost-efficient formats, with primetime increasingly filled by entertainment and (occasionally) long-running scripted series, leaving fewer slots for acquired content. This shift has hit Turkish dramas especially hard; once dominant in Lat Am’s free-to-air schedules, they are now finding fewer windows.

On the other hand, collaboration between broadcasters is growing, and we are even beginning to see the first attempts to create formal commissioning or coproduction alliances similar to the models already established across the Atlantic, such as the European Alliance and the Nordic 12.

High-profile projects like Netflix’s El Eternauta have attracted big investment

Lat Am producers are being squeezed as big streamers double down on IP
The shake-up at ViX in late 2024 sent fresh shockwaves through an already contracting Spanish-language ecosystem, as TelevisaUnivision ousted the streamer’s leadership and most of its commissioning team, pivoting to an in-house, lower-premium content strategy.

With Paramount+ inactive and Apple TV+ largely quiet in the region, Lat Am producers are now left with just four doors to knock on when it comes to ambitious projects: Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Max. And many producers report those doors are already closing fast, with some platforms locked in through 2027.

The trend towards ‘bigger, fewer, better’ is also accelerating in the region, with major investments funneled into high-profile IPs like Netflix’s El Eternauta or One Hundred Years of Solitude, Max’s Like Water for Chocolate and Prime Video’s The House of the Spirits.

One consequence of this new landscape is that it’s leaving little room for more independent and original productions, just as the sector was finally starting to find its voice and share its own stories with the world.

On the upside, with major investment slots already spoken for, the door is opening wider for acquisitions and coproduction – areas in which local streamers are showing increasing interest. And the LA Screenings might just be the right place to start knocking.

Additional reporting by Pina Mezzera, editor of C21 sister publication Cveintiuno.