Makenna Cramer
breaks down policies and programs with a focus on the housing and homelessness challenges confronting some of SoCal's most vulnerable residents.
Published January 20, 2026 5:00 AM
Trash piles up a few yards from a homeless encampment downtown last year.
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Allen J. Schaben
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
Thousands of volunteers will be fanning out across Los Angeles County this week to survey unhoused people, an annual event that determines how millions in funding is directed across the region.
Why it matters: The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which leads the count, says the data volunteers collect is essential for understanding homelessness in the region and for sending resources where they're needed most.
Why now: The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, which starts Tuesday, is the largest of its kind in the country, according to officials, with volunteers covering more than 4,000 square miles in three days.
The backstory: When last year's count showed a drop in homelessness for a second year in a row, many officials celebrated the region’s progress in getting people off the street and bucking the trend of years of increases. But it’s unclear if that trend will continue.
Read on ... for more on this year's count.
Thousands of volunteers will fan out across Los Angeles County this week to survey unhoused people, an annual event that determines how millions in funding is directed across the region.
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, which starts Tuesday, is the largest of its kind in the country, according to officials, with volunteers covering more than 4,000 square miles in three days. Small groups in assigned areas will tally the number of people, tents, shelters and vehicles they see on the streets.
Typically, the results are released in the spring or early summer.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which leads the count, says the data volunteers collect is essential for understanding homelessness in the region and for sending resources where they're needed most.
When last year's count showed a drop in homelessness for a second year in a row, many officials celebrated the region’s progress in getting people off the street and bucking the trend of years of increases.
Gita O’Neill, LAHSA’s interim CEO, said Tuesday there's a "very real possibility" the numbers will show an increase in homelessness.
"So, to be clear, all is not going to get better," O’Neill said at a news conference. "When proven solutions lose funding, homelessness doesn't stay flat, it may rise."
How it works
The annual point-in-time count is conducted each year at the end of January, as required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last year was an exception. It was moved to February because of the fires in L.A.
The 2025 count showed homelessness dropped by 3.4% in the city of L.A. and by 4% countywide, including the number of people in shelters and sleeping outdoors.
LAHSA said several factors contributed to those changes, including the clearing of encampments and nearly 28,000 people being placed into permanent housing last year — a record high.
"In 2022 and 2023, at least in the areas where we count, the [Point-in-Time count] was, as far as I can tell, excellent,” Louis Abramson, lead author of the RAND report, said previously. “I don't know what has happened afterwards."
On Tuesday, the count will start in the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley and Metro L.A. area, including downtown and Skid Row. On Wednesday, volunteers will turn their attention to East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley.
The count is expected to wrap up Thursday in the Antelope Valley, West L.A., South L.A., South Bay and Harbor region.
The 2026 homeless count dates and map.
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Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
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count.lahsa.org
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Teams typically head out after 8 p.m., when people experiencing homelessness are more likely to have settled down for the night, especially those living in cars or RVs.
But some are done during the day because of visibility or safety concerns, according to LAHSA. The Antelope Valley and parts of West L.A. will be counted Thursday morning like last year while the rest are counted at night.
Areas that may be heard to reach, including river embankments, parks or deserts, are assigned to special teams of outreach workers, according to LAHSA.
The count is conducted visually, meaning volunteers are supposed to tally only what they see in front of them. For example, if a volunteer does not see anyone but hears voices coming from a makeshift shelter, they’re instructed to count the shelter instead of the voices.
Marina Flores, left, and Helde Pereira document homeless sightings during LAHSA's annual count last year.
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Carlin Stiehl
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LAist
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A Shelter Count and Housing Inventory Count will also be held Wednesday. The Housing Inventory Count is a point-in-time tally of projects or sites that provide beds and units for the unhoused or formerly unhoused community.
The Youth Count, an estimate of the county’s unsheltered youth population, is conducted throughout the month with service organizations. It’s a survey-based tally where young people are asked about their housing status, rather than a visual count.
A separate demographic survey is also being done by the University of Southern California to gather details like age, gender, race and veteran status, among others. The survey started last month and runs through March, according to LAHSA.
This will be the first count conducted since Measure A went into effect last spring.
The new voter-approved half-cent sales tax is expected to generate about $1 billion annually for homeless services and affordable housing in L.A. County. The specific funding formula that determines which all 88 cities get what is based mostly on each city’s homeless count results from the past two years.
LAHSA said it has made several improvements for this year’s count, including simplified volunteer training and better maps created in partnership with people in the community.
The agency will be working with additional outreach staff from the L.A. County Department of Health Services and L.A. County Emergency Centralized Response Center to boost counting efforts in hard-to-reach areas that are too dangerous or inaccessible for volunteers, according to officials.
LAHSA is again using an app made by Esri, a software company based in Redlands, to collect volunteer data for a fourth year.
Helde Pereira documents sites of homeless encampments during LAHSA's annual homeless count last year.
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Carlin Stiehl
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LAist
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Technology problems have popped up with the app before. Volunteers from the 2024 count told LAist previously that data entry errors were common, and several said they had to wait hours to start counting when they had trouble logging in.
Teams from Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s office regularly volunteer for the count.
Representatives from that office told LAist recently that the council member has been vocal about his concerns over logistics, specifically glitches with the app over the years. Blumenfield’s team usually does a paper count in addition to using the app in case there are any discrepancies, his office said in an email.
LAHSA said more of its staff will be assigned as technical support at deployment sites this year.
Ahmad Chapman, LAHSA’s director of communications, told LAist the agency has also made several changes to the Housing Inventory count to improve data collection and make it easier to validate responses.
At the time, Chapman told LAist the revisions were made because the agency discovered that its new housing inventory system had incorrectly tagged several hundred interim housing units as being within the city of L.A. The agency said it fixed the problem in July.
This time around, Chapman said, LAHSA held live training sessions for providers on how to submit data, revamped forms so information is provided by site location instead of by project and added ways to let LAHSA staff look at submissions in “near real-time.”
Volunteers at the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count go over a map of Westwood before heading out.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Volunteers
LAHSA says it hopes to have about 4,200 volunteers help complete the count from roughly 150 deployment sites, which are like base camps for each neighborhood.
L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said volunteer participation is essential for capturing a complete picture of homelessness.
“These counts help us see where progress is being made, where additional resources are needed, and how we can better serve our most vulnerable residents,” Solis said in a statement.
Multiple L.A. councilmembers and their staffers are volunteering in their districts this week, including Blumenfield in Reseda, Eunisses Hernandez in Highland Park and Hugo Soto-Martínez in Rampart Village, their offices confirmed to LAist.
About 4,000 volunteers registered as of Monday, which was up from 2,200 volunteers the week before. Some deployment sites, including Westwood and Avocado Heights, had more vacancies than volunteers, according to LAHSA’s live tracker.
O’Neill said in a statement ahead of the count that LAHSA was still looking for more sign-ups, especially in East L.A., the South Bay and the San Gabriel Valley. All ages can register, but volunteers under 18 must be with an adult at all times. You can learn more here.
Amber Sheikh, chair of the LAHSA Commission, said all Angelenos can and should be part of the solution by participating in the count.
"I believe that actually our largest untapped resource is housed individuals who care deeply," Sheikh said at a news conference Tuesday.
The agency usually sees the largest surge in registration the week leading up to the count, according to Chapman. He also said any areas not counted the next three nights will be considered a “make-up” and tallied shortly after as part of the agency’s data quality assurance process.
Robert Garrova
explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos. He also covers mental health.
Published April 27, 2026 5:00 AM
The life-size replicas of an orca family on display at the Natural History Museum of LA County.
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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Topline:
Orcas — the lovable black and white marine predators — have taken over 10,000 square feet of the Natural History Museum of L.A. County.
“Orcas: Our Shared Future” — which opened this past Sunday — includes floor to ceiling screens that play orcas swimming in the wild and life-size replicas of an orca family.
The details: There are 140 original artifacts and specimens to see and experience at the immersive show, including sculptures and masks by Indigenous artists of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
Details: You can check out Orcas: Our Shared Future through April 25, 2027, at the Natural History Museum of L.A. County.
Orcas, the lovable black and white marine predators, have taken over 10,000 square feet of the Natural History Museum of L.A. County.
Orcas: Our Shared Future, which opened Sunday, includes floor to ceiling screens that play orcas swimming in the wild and a life-size replica of Ruffles.
He was one of the first orcas Alisa Schulman-Janiger, lead research biologist for the California Killer Whale Project, saw in the wild back in the 80s.
“It’s not him but it represents him. And I can actually go back in time and replay: I was standing here and my boyfriend who became my husband was standing next to me... seeing them under us foraging for fish,” she said.
Schulman-Janiger, who is also a research associate for the museum, said there was a sighting of these giants – the largest members of the dolphin family – in our local waters just this month.
“In the Channel Islands,” she said. “I just looked at some photos today sent to me by one of the naturalists... and she saw at least 16 different orcas.”
There are 140 original artifacts and specimens to see and experience at the immersive show, including sculptures and masks by Indigenous artists of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
Fred DeNisco, an orca expert from British Columbia who goes by ‘The Orca Man’ on social media, said he fell in love with orcas at the age of three, while watching 1993’s Free Willy in the back of a mini-van.
An original 'Free Willy' VHS clamshell on display at the Natural History Museum of LA County
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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He’s followed the exhibition all over the U.S. and Canada.
“It is just so unique in the breadth of topics that it covers, both in indigenous relationships with orcas, the research and more particularly our human relationship and the tumultuous relationship that has in media and captivity and even whale watching,” DeNisco told LAist.
And in case you’re wondering, the exhibition does include an original clamshell for a VHS copy of Free Willy, the film that inspired a generation of orca-lovers like DeNisco.
You can check out Orcas: Our Shared Future through April 25, 2027.
The Dead City Punx exhibit is on through the end of May.
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Joe Gasparik
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Gold Atlas
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In this edition:
Old Woman Naked at the Broadwater, a glowworm night hike in Altadena, a punk art show and more of the best things to do this week.
Highlights:
Acclaimed author Pamela Redmond is no stranger to using her own life for inspiration for her beloved fiction. But baring all — emotionally and physically — onstage? That’s new territory for the 72-year-old. Old Woman Naked digs into the truth about aging, sexuality, feminism, motherhood and coming into your own.
Rattlesnakes sleep at night (right?), so head out for alate-night hike to see the rare California pink glowworms that come out this time of year in the Altadena foothills. Intrepid hiker Jason Wise (Journeyman) leads this nature-filled evening with L.A. Rises.
Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Silverman, and many more bold-faced comedy names join this showcase at UCB Franklin, hosted by Nate Odenkirk & Ari Mostow.
Double chin? More like double yum. Get in line early for this pop-up at Petit Grain in Santa Monica, featuringLeah Chin-Katz’s popular pastries and jams.
I’ve loved reading your reactions to the new LACMA David Geffen Galleries. Here are just a few of the many responses we received; most were positive, but there were some smart criticisms as well:
“The architecture by Peter Zumthor and the uniquely designed way of displaying the collection across time and place was brilliant! The joy is in finding the connections.” —Marlan
“Time and place braid together in a continuum unleashed from the strictly defined spaces typical of an encyclopedic museum. Truly radical in the best way possible.” —Bianca
“The art seemed to be presented in an almost random order, as if they took LACMA's collection like a deck of cards, shuffled them twice, and then just hung everything in the resulting order.” —Steve
Licorice Pizza has your music picks for the week, including post-hardcore band La Dispute at the Belasco, indie-folk star Cut Worms at Pacific Electric and rock en español sensation Julieta Venegas at the Grammy Museum — all on Tuesday. Wednesday, Charlie Puth is at the Forum, dream-pop trio Sunday (1994) is at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, singer-songwriter and breakout The Voice contestant Carol Ades plays the Troubadour and Latin rock band Zoé plays the first of two nights at the YouTube Theater. Thursday, Chet Faker plays the Novo, Maro is at the Fonda, King Tuff plays Sid The Cat Auditorium and a cappella legends Take 6 begin their four-night residency at the Blue Note.
Tuesday and Wednesday, April 28 and 29 Elysian Theater 1944 Riverside Drive, Elysian Valley COST: $25; MORE INFO
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Courtesy The Elysian
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A more up-my-alley musical has never before landed in my Instagram feed. Do you, like me, enjoy modern art and showtunes more than almost anything else? Enormous Things — a musical about Claes Oldenburg where Jeff Koons is the villain — might also be for you.
Just Sing
Thursday, April 30, 7:30 p.m. Laemmle NoHo 7 5240 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood COST: $14.50; MORE INFO
Fans of Pitch Perfect will want to check out this local real-life story. Just Sing follows the USC a cappella group SoCal VoCals as they make their way to the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella in New York City. Co-directors and cinematographers Angelique Molina and Abraham Troen will host a Q&A following the screening.
Japanese Heritage Night at Dodger Stadium
Monday, April 27, 7:10 p.m. Dodger Stadium 1000 Vin Scully Ave., Elysian Park COST: FROM $70; MORE INFO
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Courtesy Los Angeles Dodgers
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Japanese superstar Yoshiki will perform at the Dodgers vs. Marlins game ahead of his headliner performance at Disney Hall in July, marking Japanese Heritage Night at the stadium. Get there early to hear the music, enjoy Japanese food specials and grab your special game jersey.
Old Woman Naked
Wednesday and Thursday, April 29 and 30, 7:30 p.m. The Broadwater Second Stage 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood COST: $45; MORE INFO
Acclaimed author Pamela Redmond is no stranger to using her own life for inspiration for her beloved fiction, like Younger (which later became the hit Freeform show) and Older. But baring all — emotionally and physically — onstage? That’s new territory for the 72-year-old. First performed in New York to a sold-out one-night-only crowd, Old Woman Naked digs into the truth about aging, sexuality, feminism, motherhood and coming into your own. An additional date of May 17 has just been added.
Comedy, at Night
Tuesday, April 28, 8:30 p.m. UCB Franklin 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood COST: $20; MORE INFO
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Courtesy UCB Comedy
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Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Silverman and many more bold-faced comedy names join this showcase at UCB Franklin, hosted by Nate Odenkirk and Ari Mostow.
Double Chin pop-up
Monday, April 27, 9 a.m. until sold out Petitgrain Boulangerie 1209 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica COST: VARIES; MORE INFO
Double chin? More like double yum. Get in line early for this pop-up at Petitgrain, featuring Leah Chin-Katz’s popular pastries and jams.
Glowworm Full Moon Night Hike
Thursday, April 30, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Gabrielino Trail, Western Trailhead 915 Ventura Street, Altadena COST: FREE; MORE INFO
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Jason Journeyman
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Eventbrite
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Rattlesnakes sleep at night (right?), so head out for a late-night hike to see the rare California pink glowworms that come out this time of year in the Altadena foothills. Intrepid hiker Jason Wise (Journeyman) leads this nature-filled evening with L.A. Rises.
Screening: Dead City Punx
Thursday, April 30, 7:30 p.m. Brain Dead Studios 611 N. Fairfax Ave., Melrose COST: $18; MORE INFO
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Courtesy Gold Atlas
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Dead City Punx exhibit
Through Saturday, May 30 Beyond the Streets 434 N. La Brea Ave., Mid-City COST: FREE, MORE INFO
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yubo dong
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studio photography
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Punk in Los Angeles is far from dead. Dead City Punx, whose shows have shut down streets and seen fans start fires, are the focus of a new documentary and gallery show at Beyond the Streets. Dead City Punx (trailer here) tells the story of the band that built a following through “chaotic, illegal outdoor shows during the pandemic — complete with bonfires, fireworks, graffiti and clashes with law enforcement — ultimately sparking a movement that challenged what DIY and punk culture mean today.” Produced by Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, the film and gallery show are out now.
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Unhoused resident's in the Skid Row neighborhood of Downtown L.A.
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Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times
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via Getty Images
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Topline:
In 2024, L.A. County voters approved Measure A, a half-percent sales tax increase aimed at raising $1 billion a year for homeless services and affordable housing. Its backers promised voters more transparency, accountability and results.
So where do things stand now?
Why now: As new revenue flows in, questions about how L.A. County spends homelessness dollars aren’t going away.
The backstory: Homeless service providers and advocates wrote and campaigned for Measure A in 2024. Their goal was for it to replace a smaller, temporary county sales tax for homeless services known as Measure H, which was set to expire in 2027.
The funding helped move more people into shelter beds, and the number of unhoused people in shelters increased from about 15,000 in L.A. County in 2017 to about 23,000 in 2024, according to official estimates.
But L.A. County’s overall unhoused population — which includes people staying in shelters as well as those living on the streets — grew by 37%, from about 55,000 in 2017 to more than 75,000 in 2024.
Go deeper ... to learn more about Measure A and its effect on future homeless services planning.
Los Angeles County is home to the largest homeless population in the U.S. — more than 72,000 people, according to official estimates.
In 2024, county voters approved Measure A, a half-percent sales tax increase aimed at raising $1 billion a year for homeless services and affordable housing.
Its backers promised voters more transparency, accountability and results.
As new revenue flows in, questions about how L.A. County spends homelessness dollars aren’t going away.
How Measure A came to be
Homeless service providers and advocates wrote and campaigned for Measure A in 2024. Their goal was for it to replace a smaller, temporary county sales tax for homeless services known as Measure H, which was set to expire in 2027.
That quarter-percent sales tax, approved by voters in 2017, delivered about $500 million a year.
That new funding helped move more people into shelter beds, and the number of unhoused people in shelters in L.A. County increased from about 15,000 in 2017 to about 23,000 in 2024, according to official estimates.
But the county's overall unhoused population — which includes people staying in shelters as well as those living on the streets —- grew by 37%, from about 55,000 in 2017 to more than 75,000 in 2024.
Measure A’s solution was to double the special sales tax for homelessness, make it permanent and use the extra revenue to help build more affordable housing in addition to homeless services.
Elise Buik, President and CEO of United Way of Greater Los Angeles presents an award to Peter Laugharn, President and CEO of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation at the United Way "Annual HomeWalk To End Homelessness" in 2017. Both organizations were major backers of Measure A, along with the California Community Foundation and others.
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Greg Doherty
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Getty Images
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Measure A’s promises
Voters approved Measure A amid increasing concerns about the regional agency long tasked with managing public homelessness dollars by the county and city of L.A.
A county audit in late 2024 found that the Los Angeles Regional Homelessness Authority, or LAHSA, had regularly paid service providers late and failed to properly monitor contracts. A separate court-ordered report found L.A. city officials had made it impossible to accurately track homelessness spending, largely by outsourcing to LAHSA.
Measure A proposed a new approach to the region’s homeless services system, which many have described as “dysfunctional.” Written into the ordinance were clearer systemwide goals, increased accountability over spending and consequences for programs that fail to perform.
Unlike Measure H, which focused on getting people off the street, Measure A was written to also focus on preventing people from falling into homelessness. It directs more than 35% of its roughly $1 billion in yearly revenue to a new county affordable housing agency. Supporters estimated it could produce 18,000 new affordable units in L.A. County over 10 years.
It directs 60% or revenues towards homeless services — and dedicates a portion of that funding to be split directly among L.A. County’s 88 cities.
Measure A delegated oversight responsibilities for the spending to the county Board of Supervisors and two governance bodies the board had established in 2023 to coordinate regional planning on homelessness.
The first is an advisory group called the Leadership Table for Regional Homelessness Alignment. It includes nonprofit service providers and experts who meet regularly and inform policy decisions.
Its nine members include two county supervisors (currently Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath), the L.A. mayor (currently Karen Bass), an L.A. City Council member (currently Nithya Raman), a representative from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and four officials from cities across the county.
The committee’s recommendations go to the county Board of Supervisors, which has the final say.
Last March, the supervisors formally adopted five-year Measure A goals with 2030 deadlines. They include: reducing unsheltered homelessness in the county by 30%, moving twice as many people annually into permanent housing and boosting affordable housing production by about 50%.
Measure A’s effects
One of the early after effects of passing Measure A has been a reorganization of who controls the growing pot of county homelessness dollars.
In April 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted to divert more than $300 million from LAHSA and create a new county department, the Department of Homeless Services and Housing, to manage homelessness funding directly.
Supporters of the move said it was necessary because Measure A voters were demanding accountability that LAHSA wasn’t delivering. The new county department formally launched in January.
The full transition of LAHSA programs to the county is planned in July. The Board of Supervisors recently directed the new department to create strict oversight procedures for all homeless service contracts.
Last March, L.A. County approved its first annual budget that included projected allocations from Measure A, totaling about $1 billion. The county had twice as much funding at its disposal but still cut tens of millions of dollars in programs and services for unhoused people, citing a strategic shift.
Now, the county is finalizing the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. It again includes $1 billion for homeless services and affordable housing because of Measure A, but the homelessness spending plan includes nearly $200 million in program reductions.
County officials said those reductions were necessary to cover rising shelter costs and the loss of pandemic-era state and federal funding.
Measure A has allocated about $100 million annually, or roughly 9% of all Measure A revenues, directly to the 88 cities within L.A. County to address homelessness in what’s known as the Local Solutions Fund. The county publishes a regional plan showing how that money is used.
The funding is awarded based primarily on a city’s recent unhoused population numbers, using estimates from the official annual homeless count.
Some city leaders complain that their residents are paying way more into the Measure A tax than they are getting out of it.
Torrance mayor George Chen says his city will generate about $26 million annually for the county through the Measure A sales tax, and it will receive about $559,000 in local funding through the measure.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath supported the Measure A sales tax, and also championed the effort to break from LAHSA and form a new county homelessness department.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Affordable housing focus
The major structural difference between Measure A and its predecessor is that it earmarks roughly 36% of its proceeds — about $363 million a year — for affordable housing development. Those funds flow through a new independent regional agency called the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, or LACAHSA.
The agency’s mandate is to create new affordable homes, preserve lower-rent housing and prevent displacement. It is still in its early stages.
As of March, the agency had received $275 million from Measure A and distributed $25 million to recipients, according to its Measure A Funds Tracker. Most of what had been awarded was emergency rental assistance.
On April 15, the agency’s board conditionally approved its first major round of housing production funding, approximately $102 million for 10 projects that will add 566 units of affordable housing, according to a recent report.
Projects are required to break ground within one year of receiving awards. A second round of awards is scheduled for the board's May 13 meeting.
Demand for funding far outpaced what was available: LACAHSA received 242 applications for 127 projects totaling $1.56 billion and representing 11,484 units.
What’s next?
The goals Measure A set are ambitious, and the deadline is 2030. A county dashboard tracking progress shows the region gaining ground reducing unsheltered homelessness while falling behind on other targets.
The county hasn’t made any progress decreasing the number of people falling into homelessness or decreasing homelessness among people with mental health or substance use disorders. The dashboard does not yet include affordable housing production metrics.
The transition from the regional Homeless Services Authority to the new county Department of Homeless Services and Housing is still underway, with a full handoff of staff and programs targeted for July 2026.
Federal cuts and changes to funding from Medicaid and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development — flagged as “threats to recent progress” in thecounty's recent budget documents — loom over the entire system.
According to new data from TikTok and theater trade group Cinema United fan-made TikToks can now do what big marketing campaigns couldn't always achieve: keep a movie thriving after opening weekend.
Why it matters: TikTokers post enthusiastic movie reviews, they cosplay and reenact scenes, and some create new edits from the official trailers and footage. For instance, 24-year-old college student Josiah Pilet remixed Spider-Man clips set to music.
Read on ... for more on why Hollywood is embracing social media influencers.
According to new data from TikTok and theater trade group Cinema United fan-made TikToks can now do what big marketing campaigns couldn't always achieve: keep a movie thriving after opening weekend.
At this year's CinemaCon, the annual convention for movie theater owners, director Denis Villeneuve showed the first seven minutes of his third Dune film. He told the crowd he made his latest installment of the science fiction saga for the fans. And long before the December opening, fans have been posting their own reactions on TikTok.
"There's this incredible chant in Dune3 that's in the trailer and what we've seen is it's a soundbite that users on TikTok have embraced and made their own content with," says Cameron Curtis, executive vice president of global digital marketing for Warner Bros.
He says TikTok is a tremendous platform for reaching new audiences.
"We often see that the creator content on [the] platform outperforms our traditional advertising content by 3-to-1. It's become just critical to our strategy and everything that we do," says Curtis.
He says Warner Bros. and other studios have been partnering with TikTok creators to market their films. According to TikTok executives, that's for good reason. "We really saw that the buzz doesn't stop with the opening weekend," says Dennis Papirowski, TikTok's global head of Entertainment and News.
He says every day, the platform's users create 6.5 million posts related to content from new and classic films and TV shows. According to TikTok, half of their users say they discovered a new movie through the platform. And of those, more than a third looked up showtimes and purchased a movie ticket.
Dawn Yang, the company's global head of entertainment partnerships and business development, says studios tend to do a lot of marketing for the first weekend a film opens.
"But on TikTok, it really takes off after the first weekend," she says, "because people have seen the entire movie and they want to talk about it."
TikTokers post enthusiastic movie reviews, they cosplay and reenact scenes, and some create new edits from the official trailers and footage. For instance, 24-year-old college student Josiah Pilet remixed Spider-Man clips set to music.
Fan edits would have been no-nos in the old Hollywood strategy of protecting intellectual property, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore, which analyzes the box office.
"There was a time when studios did not want marketing messaging going out that wasn't from them," he says. Now, he says even negative responses to movies are welcome "as long as it's not something horrible, that can boost the profile of a movie and excitement around it, because sometimes people want to see what the fuss is all about."
Dergarabedian says studios are increasingly embracing and harnessing the power of short TikToks made by the key Gen Z audience.
"You have some movies that open huge, have a huge opening weekend, then drop by 70% or more in their second weekend," he says. "But the way you keep people coming back is that you not only have a great movie, but the social media engagement continues, amplifies and creates that excitement and the FOMO factor among potential moviegoers."
Take last year's box office hit Sinners. Cinema United and TikTok's report found that buzz about the film surged on the platform during its opening week — and ticket sales barely dipped the following week.
But social media platforms, including TikTok, have also sometimes caused minor headaches for theaters. Last year, fan-made posts chronicled the mayhem sparked by a line spoken by Jack Black's character in The Minecraft Movie.
Audiences shouted "chicken jockey" along with him and tossed popcorn in theaters. The ruckus was so chaotic that one fan even carried a live chicken into the movie, as shown by one viral video.
At CinemaCon, Warner Bros. executives offered a good-natured apology to theater owners for the mess.
But it's not just fans posting TikToks. As executive director of communications and content for B&B Theatres, Paul Farnsworth makes funny TikToks, starring himself and the staff — often in the lobby, playing around with the latest movies.
"It's like a little wink-wink joke, nothing that you're going to like, pay money to go see a stand-up comedian say," he says. "But I think for us, it indicates to our guests a sensibility of like the playfulness of the movies, the magic of the experience, the shared communal thing that we're all trying to achieve with them."
Farnsworth says he asks the studios for guidance on the material — hoping his viral TikToks get people into movie theaters.
