New Zealand is to make its visual effects incentive more accessible to producers a year after the country’s overall filming incentive package was boosted. As an administrative change, Film New Zealand will be absorbed into the New Zealand Film Commission.
Anna Gunn’s new Wall Street drama Equity is doubling Philadelphia for New York City. Gunn is best known for her role as Skyler White in Breaking Bad and in her new film is playing an investment banker facing the challenges of sexism in New York’s financial district.
A new movie adaptation of Swallows and Amazons is being shot in the Lake District in north-west England and has been welcomed by the National Trust. Historical buildings managed by the organisation have appeared recently in the BBC’s period drama series Wolf Hall.
Delaware in the eastern US is to set up a Motion Picture and Television Development Commission. A small number of features have shot locally over the years, including the 1989 coming-of-age drama Dead Poets Society, starring the late Robin Williams.
The current commissioner of the Irish Film Board (IFB) is to join Pinewood Productions Ireland Limited as the company’s Head of Production. Naoise Barry has headed the Irish Film Board for the past 14 years, but will leave the organisation in mid-August.
Upcoming TV series Blood & Oil will be based at the recently-opened Park City Film Studios near Salt Lake City in northern Utah. The western state is not yet a production hub but in recent years has hosted films like the survival drama 127 Hours and the epic sci-fi movie John Carter.
As HBO’s fantasy drama Game of Thrones secures 24 Emmy nominations, Northern Ireland Screen has revealed the show has spent around GBP 110 million locally since 2010. Production is based at Titanic Studios in Belfast and has boosted film tourism to the region.
Marvel’s new superhero film Ant-Man shot mostly on location in Georgia, doubling the state for San Francisco and using Pinewood Atlanta Studios as a base. The movie follows a thief who uses a technologically-advanced suit to shrink himself to the size of an ant.