New England Studios has opened for business in Devens, near Boston in Massachusetts. The studio managers plan to use the facility to drive a location filming boost in the state and attract more productions on the scale of David O Russell’s Oscar-winning The Fighter.
Queensland in north-east Australia has formally announced that Angelina Jolie will be filming her World War II feature Unbroken on location in the state. Jolie’s second directorial effort will film partly at Village Roadshow Studios near Gold Coast.
Employment in Virginia’s production industry has grown since the eastern-US state enhanced its location filming incentive in 2010. Eleven productions including Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln got a total of USD12 million in incentive payments and spent more than five times that figure locally.
A so-called ‘film czar’ has been appointed by Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles. Tom Sherak has the challenging role of boosting the production industry in the city and also throughout California, and a key element of his job will be campaigning for improved filming incentives.
A California firm has announced plans to develop a film studio in the town of Schenectady in upstate New York. Pacifica Ventures wants to spend nearly USD70 million on filming facilities on a site formerly used by the American Locomotive Company (Alco).
New fantasy film The Moon and the Sun will film on location in Victoria, Australia, in 2014. The movie is based on a novel from Vonda McIntyre and tells a story of King Louis XIV of France capturing a mermaid to steal its life force.
Detroit set an unwanted record in mid-2013 as it became the largest city in the US to file for bankruptcy protection. Since then, the iconic Michigan metropolis has hosted Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, while Zack Snyder’s Batman Vs Superman will visit in 2014.
A producer of HBO’s hit drama Boardwalk Empire has praised New York’s filming incentive programme and stated that without it the show would be filming elsewhere. The Prohibition-era gangster series has filmed four seasons and this weekend won five Emmys.