DEFINITION January 2020

PRODUCT ION BOOM | FEATURE

LONG-TERM NEW DEALS AND EXPANS IONS

1 . Pinewood has entered into a long-term agreement (thought to be at least ten years) with The Walt Disney Company. The arrangement will see Disney take all the stages, backlots and other production accommodation at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, UK. Pinewood has relinquished its stake in Pinewood Wales.

2 . Back in July last year, Netflix announced it is creating a dedicated production hub, featuring 14 sound stages, workshops and office space at Shepperton Studios. The first Netflix original production to film at Shepperton will be The Old Guard , starring Charlize Theron and Kiki Layne, and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood.

3 . BBC Studioworks is continuing its partnership with Hertfordshire-based Elstree Studios for another four years, until at least March 2024. This fruitful collaboration sees the BBC continuing to hire studios ‘Elstree 8 & 9’ and ‘George Lucas Stage 2’ located on the Elstree Studios lot.

REGENERAT ION

4 . Sky has announced plans to develop a new 32-acre TV and film studio at Elstree in Hertfordshire, creating up to 2000 jobs. It hopes the new facility, with 14 sound stages, will open in 2022 and attract an additional £3bn of production investment over the first five years of operation. 5 . For many years, the 1200-acre Cold War base at Heyford Park, Oxford, has had a long tradition of filming, including World War Z , Fast & Furious 6 and Wonder Woman . There is an existing application for a purpose-built campus for pre- and post-film, TV, online production and new innovative technologies called Creative City. 6 . Church Fenton’s production facility includes three hangars totalling nearly 100,000 sq ft of internal production space, plus additional workshops and offices. It also has one of the biggest backlots in the UK – 440 acres of land and a network of full-width runways and roadways. Church Fenton is the base for ITV’s global hit Victoria . 7 . Channel 4’s move to Leeds will see the Polestar Petty printworks and Engine House become state-of-the-art facilities, creating a number of new jobs, bringing further investment to the city and helping these sectors to flourish. New creative hubs in Bristol’s Finzels Reach development and Glasgow’s Garment Factory are both opening in November. 8 . Stalled plans to build a Hollywood-style studio in Dagenham East have been thrown a lifeline, with a backer offering £179m to get the first new TV and film studio built in London in 25 years. 9 . A planning application for a film and TV studio complex has been submitted in Ashford, Kent. The developers want to turn an unused railway works site into a huge

15 . Wardpark Film and Television Studios is a new film and television studio in Cumbernauld, Scotland. The site has approximately 200,000 sq ft of studio space and includes five sound stages, along with production offices and workshops, together with an external green screen area. Wardpark is currently occupied by production for Outlander , produced by Sony Pictures Television and Left Bank Pictures for Starz. 16 . The Pelamis Building in Leith, Scotland, will hopefully house Amazon’s new The Lord of the Rings series for the next five years. Previous credits include Avengers: Infinity War (Marvel). 17 . Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is to open Mercian Studios in the middle of Birmingham, and he promises it will be run in the most green way possible. Costs are approximately £100 million, which should pay for at least six stages. 18 . Wolf Studios Wales is a new studio facility in South Wales within close proximity to Cardiff centre and Cardiff Bay. Facilities include 125,000 sq ft of stage space, with five stages ranging from 14,200 to 50,000 sq ft and stage heights from 31 to 57.5 feet. Recent credits include A Discovery of Witches (Sky One, AMC) and His Dark Materials (BBC One, HBO). 19 . Rebellion Studios is a new film studio on the old Daily Mail printworks near Sutton Courtenay, close to Oxford. It’s a 220,000 sq ft film studio ostensibly to produce Rebellion’s own productions. 20 . Manchester’s expanding Space Studios (recent credits include TV series Curfew and The A-Word ) has more than 85,000 sq ft of stages. There is one stage of 30,000 sq ft, four stages of 11,500 sq ft, and another of 9,000 sq ft.

new studio featuring four studios, a hotel and apartments in the former engine sheds. 10 . In late 2017, planning permission was granted in favour of Scotland’s first purpose-built international film and television studio complex at Straiton, outside Edinburgh. After a farmer’s complaint the site moved, and plans now comprise a complex spanning 48 acres, with nine sound stages across 208,000 sq ft. 11 . The Loop facility is ten minutes’ drive from central Belfast and George Best Belfast City Airport. The site comprises three stages, as well as two workshops and office space. Northern Ireland Screen further reported Stage 1 as being 38,000 sq ft with eaves height rising to 38 feet at the mid-point. 12 . Belfast Harbour Studios is an eight-acre site located within the 340-acre Giants Park. Two identical, purpose-built sound stages – each 32,000 sq ft – are capable of opening up for combined use as one large space of 64,000 sq ft. In 2017, the Superman prequel TV series, Krypton , was the first tenant. 13 . Titanic Studios, set on an another eight-acre site five minutes’ drive from central Belfast (in the historically renowned Titanic Quarter), comprise the original Paint Hall studio and two new, purpose-built sound stages – the Hurst and MacQuitty stages – which form the new extension. This was home to the Game of Thrones series. 14 . A property developer has teamed with Twickenham Studios to deliver major filming studio in the Littlewoods Building in Liverpool. The project will feature two new 20,000 sq ft sound stages alongside supporting workshops, wardrobe and prop storage, as well as offices.

JANUARY 2020 | DEF I N I T ION 49

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