Marvel Studios has shifted most of its production out of Georgia in favor of the United Kingdom — a move that has gutted the Peach State’s film industry, wiping out nearly half its spending and leaving once-bustling soundstages largely empty.
The Disney-owned studio behind “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” filmed nearly two dozen projects in Atlanta over the past decade.
But starting with this summer’s “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” Marvel is shifting its superhero slate — including two new “Avengers” films and the next “Spider-Man” — to facilities outside London.
While major studios including Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery threatened boycotts over Georgia’s 2019 abortion law, with some smaller productions leaving in protest, Marvel’s current exodus to the UK is driven purely by economics.
Rising labor costs in Georgia tipped the scales. In the UK, crews are paid less and studios aren’t saddled with health insurance expenses, making it cheaper to shoot overseas, a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.
The result has been devastating. Georgia’s film and TV spending has plunged nearly 50% in three years, with just 245 projects filmed in the fiscal year ending June 2025 — down from 412 in 2022.
“You feel like a jilted lover,” Janine Gosselin, 62, a script supervisor who once made $200,000 a year working Marvel sets, told the Journal.
She hasn’t had steady work since February 2024 and has borrowed from her retirement fund to cover bills.
The downturn has film workers so demoralized they’ve turned the state’s famous jingle into a joke. Crew members on the game show “25 Words or Less” sang new lyrics to the “Made in Georgia” tag earlier this year: “Unemployed in Georgia.”
Trilith Studios — Marvel’s longtime 1,000-acre production hub near Atlanta, with 34 stages and its own housing village — has gone quiet after years of nonstop demand.
“We were fighting over stages on a daily basis because there just wasn’t enough room for Marvel and whatever other show was trying to film,” location scout Lenzi Sealy, who worked on four Marvel projects, told the Journal.
Now, she says, the lot is “largely empty.”
Sealy remembered February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” shoot, when rumors spread it might be Marvel’s Georgia swan song.
Her fears came true weeks later when the studio held an auction to sell props it had accumulated during its decade in the state.
“That’s when it really hit home,” she told the Journal.
For local crews, Marvel wasn’t just another client — it was the cornerstone. The studio’s high-budget blockbusters employed hundreds at a time and kept workers busy year-round.
“Marvel allowed me to do so much with my life and really set the trajectory for my career,” said grip John Grubb, 44, who worked six Marvel films.
He even calls his $350,000 home “the house ‘Avengers’ bought.”
The collapse comes after a meteoric rise that began in 2008, when Georgia expanded of its film tax credit to 30%, uncapped — making it one of the most generous in the world.
The policy turned Atlanta into the so-called “Hollywood of the South.”
Franchises rushed in: Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games,” Universal’s “Fast & Furious,” Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”
At its peak, the industry supported nearly 20,000 jobs, according to a 2023 Georgia State University study.
But the global economics have changed. Across the US, 29% fewer big-budget movies and shows began filming in 2024 compared to 2022, according to ProdPro.
In the UK, that number jumped 16%.
Other countries like Canada and Australia continue to lure projects. States including California, New York, New Jersey and Texas are pumping up their own incentives to compete.
Lee Thomas, director of the Georgia Film Office, said rising labor costs drove Marvel and others out.
“We hope that this is an anomaly where they’ll try out other markets and will return to Georgia because they have faith in our crew and facilities and our tried-and-true incentive,” she told the Journal.
Trilith CEO Frank Patterson is betting the slump will end, predicting a “new normal in 2027.”
In the meantime, his company is investing in startups that make content exclusively on the studio’s stages.
The Post has sought comment from the Georgia Film Office and Marvel.
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