A VIP travel company is eyeing Hollywood stars by opening a new office in Atlanta. Georgia’s status has grown as a filming hub for big-budget productions partly through a generous filming incentive that’s secured the Hunger Games franchise and the Divergent movies.
Veteran actor Patrick Stewart has started filming new comedy series Blunt Talk on location in Los Angeles. Executive produced by Family Guy guru Seth MacFarlane, the story will follow Stewart’s British broadcaster Walter Blunt as he transfers to a new job in US cable news.
Developers in Florida are looking at a site in Miami-Dade County to build a new large-scale studio. The facility would offer nearly a dozen sound stages and multiple water tanks, and could help the city attract more productions like Miami-filmed spy drama Burn Notice, which ended in 2013.
Edinburgh hosted 361 separate productions in 2014, resulting in a local economic impact of nearly GBP 5 million, an increase of 53% on the previous year. Television drama Outlander filmed in the capital for 19 days.
Filmmaker Danny Boyle and star Michael Fassbender have started filming in San Francisco for a new movie about the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of technology giant Apple. The film will focus on backstage events at three of Jobs’ key product launches, ending with the iMac in 1998.
Disney has added the Upper Hutt region of New Zealand to the list of filming locations to be used in its remake of the 70s fantasy Pete’s Dragon. Production will be based at Stone Street Studios in nearby Wellington.
Scotland will face stiff competition to host sci-fi story Seeker, which is set partly in the Scottish Highlands. The Young Adult novel will be published next month and Sony Pictures has already bought the movie rights as it eyes a new franchise in the vein of The Hunger Games.
Government funding of CAD 1.2 million has been awarded to Creative BC to help boost British Columbia’s creative industries, including the film and TV sectors. Vancouver is one of Canada’s main production centres and has recently hosted Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla.