The California Film Commission has announced initial filming incentive approval for 26 productions for the next year. Eleven features and 13 TV series are among those selected for the state’s 20% tax credit, including one show – Being Mary Jane – that’s relocating from Georgia.
Pinewood Studios has announced a revenues boost for the 2013/14 financial year. The company reported an increase of 16.5% on the previous year and highlighted key developments including the completion of its new Q Stage and progress on Pinewood Atlanta Studios in the US.
Pinewood Studios has been given a long-awaited green light to expand its filming facilities in London. The Pinewood Studios Development Framework is a GBP200 million plan to build a dozen new sound stages, production offices and workshop space.
A new direct flight route launched by Etihad between Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi could help boost filming in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE hopes the ease of travel will encourage more US producers to make the journey from LA and film on location in Abu Dhabi.
Filmmaker Gareth Edwards will shoot a spinoff Star Wars movie in the UK. Director JJ Abrams is already at work in London on Star Wars: Episode VII as the first in a new trilogy, but Disney/Lucasfilm is also planning a series of non-trilogy spinoff movies.
The pilot for new US drama series Knifeman is filming on location at West London Film Studios in the UK. Tom Hollander will play real-life 18th Century Scottish surgeon John Hunter in a story based on the biography The Knife Man: Blood, Body-Snatching and the Birth of Modern Surgery.
Kiefer Sutherland will film night scenes for his rebooted action miniseries 24: Live Another Day on location in Southampton this week. The new show is based in London but will branch out to DP World’s Container Terminal in the port city on England’s south coast.
Aaron Paul, star of the hit crime drama Breaking Bad, has opened the refurbished West London Film Studios in Hayes, along with studio owner Frank Khalid. The facility offers 105,000 square feet of studio space, including six stages and office space.