Written by Tom Deehan on Oct 23, 2015. Posted in Production News

New Thor and Alien movies to be filmed on location in Australia

Australia's fortunes are improving as the latest film in the long running Aliens franchise and Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok have both confirmed they will be filming in the country.

What it means is 3000 direct jobs for Australians... it also presents the opportunity to showcase Australia, to let people know that this is a terrific place not only to do work but also for tourism.

In 2012 the country lost out on two major productions. The film adaptation of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost was cancelled due to budget concerns and the Wachowski siblings' Jupiter Ascending was lured to the UK by its attractive incentives.

Australia has seen success with productions like San Andreas, filmed on location in Queensland, which grossed USD450.5 million worldwide. Thor: Ragnarok and the currently untitled Aliens film are also expected to drive massive commercial success. Their predecessors, Thor: Dark World and Prometheus grossed USD644.8 million and USD 403.4 million respectively.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield commented on the announcement: “what it means is 3000 direct jobs for Australians... it also presents the opportunity to showcase Australia, to let people know that this is a terrific place not only to do work but also for tourism.”

Australia currently offers three separate branches of a traditional film incentive: a 40% Producer rebate, a 16.5% rebate for large scale productions, and a 30% rebate for post, digital, and visual effects production.

“All expressed a very keen interest to invest in significant new film production projects right here in Australia. They specifically spoke about the value in Australia as a filming destination, the quality and variety of our locations, but more importantly our highly qualified and talented workforce, our embrace of innovative technology, our stable economy, our dollar. All this makes Australia an attractive destination”, said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

Both films will being production in 2016.