The future of New Zealand’s location filming incentives is likely to be announced within months. A review has been underway for some time and the size of subsidies paid to Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films has ignited a political row.
Officials in North Carolina – home of the first Hunger Games film – have called for the state’s location filming incentive to be made permanent. The existing 25% rebate is set to expire at the start of 2015, but Charlotte City Council wants to remove this ‘sunset’ date.
A two-part TV project dramatising The Great Train Robbery of 1963 will help boost location filming in West Yorkshire, northern England, in the coming months. The BBC production will be screened in August 2013 and will mark the famous robbery’s 50th anniversary.
Dystopian thriller Divergent will become the first major feature to shoot at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios in Illinois. The project will be helmed by Limitless director Neil Burger and is expected to spend more than USD30 million in the state.
Details of production spending from location filming on Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films have been revealed by the Office of Prime Minister John Key in New Zealand. The figures were released when politicians questioned how many jobs the films created.
Pinewood Studios has signed an agreement to set up a new centre of excellence that will provide young people with specialist training in the screen industries. Courses will focus on visual effects, videogames and support services.
New Mexico will benefit from longer-term location filming doubling for Wyoming when TV crime drama Longmire returns. Shooting for the show’s second season gets underway in the next few weeks in Santa Fe as long-term Albuquerque resident Breaking Bad comes to an end.
Hampshire in southern England attracted major features including Les Miserables and Brad Pitt’s World War Z through the course of 2012. Total production spending came to around GBP3 million for the year.