Ken Ziffren has been appointed the new ‘film czar’ for Los Angeles, faced with the task of boosting location filming in the city. Ziffren is an experienced entertainment attorney and succeeds Tom Sherak, who tragically died of cancer in January after only a few months in the role.
New Fox TV drama Gotham will explore the early career of James Gordon, the detective who eventually helps Batman with his fight against Gotham City’s super-villains. Filming locations for the series will need to offer tax incentives and film-friendly production infrastructure.
In March 2014 the BBC is screening a new series of drama Shetland, named for the remote archipelago north of the Scottish mainland where it's filmed and set. Douglas Henshall stars as a detective working in the small island communities.
Advocacy group the North Carolina Production Alliance (NCPA) has formed to promote the state’s filming incentive. A generous 25% filming tax credit is set to expire at the end of 2014 and the production industry is lobbying for a renewal to attract more shoots like Stephen King’s Under the Dome.
Hit drama series House of Cards will return for a third season and will continue filming on location in Maryland. The high-end political drama doubles Baltimore for Washington, DC, and made history in 2013 for becoming the first series to be made available exclusively online via Netflix.
A new film studio is to be built in the city of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and could help attract more shoots on the scale of the recent Klondike. The new facility will offer two sound stages of 20,000 square feet and 30,000 square feet, respectively, as well as extensive workshop and warehouse space.
A miniseries based on Booker Prize-winning novel The Luminaries should film on location in New Zealand, the author has said. Eleanor Catton’s novel is set in 1866 during the Otago Gold Rush of southern New Zealand and she wants the drama adaptation to film in the country.
Pirate drama Black Sails filmed on location at Cape Town Film Studios in South Africa, doubling the region for the Bahamas. Set in 1720, the series is pitched as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic pirate novel Treasure Island and follows the adventures of Captain Flint.