Further enhancements to the UK’s filming incentives have been announced by the Chancellor George Osborne. The TV tax credit that’s attracted shoots like 24: Live Another Day and Veep is now accessible with a lower spend and a dedicated children’s TV tax credit has been launched.
The UK’s new TV tax credit drove a huge increase in television location filming in its first full year, according to figures published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Designed to bring more high-end TV shoots to the UK, the tax credit attracted Veep, Elementary and 24: Live Another Day.
Lawmakers in Washington, DC, are pushing to introduce local filming incentives. The city is a popular setting for TV productions like House of Cards, Veep and Scandal, but high-profile shows typically only spend a couple of days in the actual city to film establishing shots.
The BBC has commissioned a miniseries adaptation of espionage drama The Night Manager, starring Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. Based on a novel by John le Carré, author of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the series will tell a story of modern crime in Washington and Whitehall.
Production professionals in Maryland are fighting to keep the state filming incentive following a report questioning the local benefits of the tax credit. Netflix political drama House of Cards is based in Baltimore but faced a struggle to keep the show when the film fund was reduced.
Location filming in Virginia got a boost in 2013 with TV dramas like TURN: Washington’s Spies, according to the Governor’s Office. In contrast, a report published in neighbouring Maryland has urged the cancellation of the state’s filming incentive.
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.
Kevin Spacey’s political drama House of Cards is likely to keep Maryland as its filming location now that the state has chosen to boost its filming tax credit. In the coming weeks lawmakers are expected to formalise an increase in Maryland’s film fund from USD7.5 million to USD18.5 million.