Nomadic filmmakers abandon Hollywood, follow the money
LOS ANGELES — In the old days, filmmakers flocked to Hollywood for its abundant sunshine, beautiful people and sandy beaches. But today a new filmmaking diaspora is spreading across the globe to places like Vancouver, London and Wellington, New Zealand.
Fuelled by politicians doling out generous tax breaks, filmmaking talent is migrating to where the money is. The result is an incentives arms race that pits California against governments around the world and allows powerful studios — with hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal — to cherry-pick the best deals.
The most recent iteration of the phenomenon came earlier this month when James Cameron announced plans to shoot and produce the next three Avatar sequels largely in New Zealand. What Cameron gets out of the deal is a 25 per cent rebate on production costs, as long as his company spends at least $413 million on the three films.
“There’s no place in the world that we could make these sequels more cost effectively,” says producer Jon Landau. It is neither the archipelago’s volcanoes nor its glaciers that are attractive, because the Avatar movies will be shot indoors. Sure, Peter Jackson’s award-winning special effects infrastructure is there, but the deciding factor was the money. “We looked at other places,” Landau says. But in the end, “it was this rebate.”
In exchange, the local New Zealand economy will benefit hugely, Landau says. “We’re doing lumber, we’re catering for hundreds of people a day. We’re housing people in hotels. We’re going to a stationery store and tripling their business in a year.”
The deal was “the best Christmas present we could have possibly hoped for,” says Alex Lee, an Auckland, New Zealand-based entertainment lawyer. The news is especially welcome because the local screen industry is facing a potential drought: The Starz pay-TV series Spartacus finished this year and Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy is set to wrap next year. Thanks to the Avatar sequels, the 1,100 workers at Weta Digital Ltd., the groundbreaking digital effects house Jackson cofounded in 1993, can keep plugging away through 2018.
Driving the trend are powerful global forces squeezing the entertainment industry. Falling DVD sales are putting pressure on moviemaking budgets, while the demand for ever-more-amazing special effects grows. The spread of technology and skills around the world is creating a huge number of special-effects suppliers — some using cheaper labour than can be found in Hollywood.
Government largesse has helped create mini-moguldoms in Vancouver, Montreal, London, New York and Wellington, all of which are aggressively oneupping each other to become the next new hotbed of activity.