Toronto may bill itself as Hollywood North, but with a strong Canadian dollar, leaner American budgets and limited facilities, the city is finding itself scrambling to keep our important film business from defecting elsewhere. Though more than $700 million was dumped into Toronto's film industry last year, that was a nauseating 22% drop from the year before. The big money is in blockbusters like the Spider-Man and Mummy franchises, but Toronto often gets bypassed due to a lack of any mega-soundstage facilities.
Beginning next spring, that problem will begin to resolve with the completion of Phase 1 of Toronto's first megastudio project in the city portlands.
Called Filmport, the facility would eventually be able to accommodate up to five mid-budget feature films or two huge blockbuster productions on a 20-hectare landscape. The first phase, which is currently under construction off Commissioners Street, is the project's most significant building: a 4,000 square metre (45,500 square foot) vaulted studio stage, which would be the largest purpose-built soundstage in the world, rising to a column-free height of 18 metres (60 feet). This phase also includes the construction of six more smaller soundstages, and the overall development will eventually become the largest production cluster outside of Los Angeles.
The foundations were poured at the end of last year and the steel construction has just begun, with pre-cast wall sections to be installed by September and the soundstage being available for business in April.
As part of the City's waterfront development plans, the Phase 1 development is estimated to reach a cost of at least $275 million and eventually cover 280,000 square metres (3 million square feet) on 20 hectares of land (the initial stage will be 150,000 square metres over 12 hectares). It is expected to take seven to ten years to complete the entire project at a total cost of more than $700 million.
Filmport is being built on land previously owned by Imperial Oil, whom actually paid the City to take the incredibly polluted plot off their hands. The City is chipping-in to the cost of the extensive soil cleanup, the soundstage foundations and the extension of the Don Roadway.
How the Filmport development arrived at the land deal was subject to criticism, particularly by competing studio Cinespace. The portlands are owned by the Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO), who granted the Filmport developers a 99-year lease which included a "no compete" clause—effectively locking out any competing studio from using the TEDCO lands. The TEDCO deals were also done entirely in secret, which miffed both Cinespace and citizens concerned about the waterfront plans, but also confirmed the suspicions of some that TEDCO—like the Toronto Port Authority—was an arms-length rogue agency.
The land was allocated after a 2004 bidding war, which saw England's famous Pinewood Studios losing-out to a bid by The Rose Corporation, which operates Toronto Film Studios (TFS), and a company held by TFS President Ken Ferguson. Toronto Film Studios is currently handling the second Incredible Hulk movie, which will be the most expensive film ever shot in Toronto.
Pinewood, which is part owned by director brothers Tony and Sir Ridley Scott, now has development plans for a five-studio complex in the west end. Once TFS relocates to Filmport, their existing Eastern Avenue site is slated for a Wal-Mart superstore.
Sadly, the big loser has been Cinespace, who were just booted out of their landmark Jarvis and Queens Quay facility by TEDCO to make way for office and retail space (also part of the Waterfront Revitalization Project). The 13,000 square metre (140,000 square foot) Cinespace Marine 28 waterfront complex was home to the production of more than 500 flicks, including X-Men and Chicago. TEDCO says that Cinespace knew for more than a year that they would have to close up shop, and that they offered studio land in Etobicoke that was rebuffed.
With all obstacles now cleared with the Ontario Municipal Board, the investors of the Filmport project received a major capital investment this month by businessman Paul Bronfman, who is the cousin of entertainment mogul Edgar Bronfman, Jr. Paul Bronfman's company, Comweb Corporation, is the second largest voting shareholder of Montreal's Astral Media, which owns The Movie Network, Teletoon, and 29 radio stations, among other assets.
The investors of Filmport say they want not only to create a blockbuster-grade studio lot, but also a film and media district with watefront cafés and retail amenities—what Filmport calls a "convergence district." An proposed ancillary business park across the street might house set builders, broadcasters, equipment suppliers and costume houses. Much of the design work will be helmed by Quadrangle Architects (the CHUM building; the BMW flagship showroom), and the entrance structure (pictured below) will be designed by British architect and Toronto darling Will Alsop (OCAD building).
Despite the controversy, the monster complex should help stem the exodus of film productions to Vancouver, Montreal and Winnipeg. Last year, 29% of the feature films shot in Toronto were American, but that number was at 49% in 2005, and U.S.-based MOW (Movie of the Week) production has dropped by 29% over the last five years.
We may complain that Toronto too often masquerades as Chicago or New York, but the presence of major American blockbusters not only injects cash into the City's coffers but keeps our highly-skilled crews working. The City of Toronto also offers some serious incentives to visiting film shoots, like tax credits, fee waivers, discounted hotel and service packages, and even a dedicated production concierge service. Filmport estimates that it will pay $30 million to the City annually in property taxes and will employ in excess of 2,000 film production workers.
However, with the Cinespace harbourfront stages shuttered, Pinewood's plans in flux and Filmport not opening their first phase until April, Toronto is left devoid of even more production space in the interim. Whether more films defect to other cities remains to be seen, but it will take some flashy enticements to re-stimulate our city's reputation as a major film centre. We've been talking about something like Filmport for a long time—promises are being made, and they're gonna have to deliver.
Renderings courtesy Filmport/Quadrangle Architects Limited.
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Is it really such an issue that Toronto can sub for New York and Chicago? Or is the sore point that Toronto doesn't play itself nearly as often? Because there's no reason it can't do both.
Shady dealings aside, I think this is good for the city. The competition for foreign production is getting stiffer as eastern Europe and Argentina are increasingly used for mid- and big-budget films.
I think a lot of Torontonians get sore that Toronto rarely ever plays itself, but whatever! Part of the issue is that American studios and networks feel that Americans won't go see a movie or watch a show that doesn't take place in the United States, usually in one of the top metropolises. American audiences should be given a bit more credit than that, though I think a lot of Americans might see a show taking place somewhere else and automatically and subconsciously think, "this show is not intended for me."
Apart from the non-compete clause, this sounds very cool indeed.
One big question though: How does this fit in with the MVVA plan for naturalizing the Lower Don? I could very well have my geography totally wrong, but it seems like this would be incompatible.
Good points on TEDCO. A light needs to be shone on that crowd.
This is just South East of the MVVA lower don footprint. The rendering above is a little confusing because it's orientation is unusual, this rendering is looking south-east and the piece of Don Roadway you see there is the planned extension. It's flipped from the way we would normally look at a map. The little green bit in the bottom right is part of the Lower Don footprint.
Significant chunks of the Lower Don footprint are in private hands (the Home Depot plot, the Docks, the cement plant) or long term irrevocable leases (the former Knob Hill soon to be a T&T) but this particular parcel isn't part of that.
The story behind the story is that this developer shafted the City, big time, with TEDCO's and Miller's help.
This was supposed to be a new supply of studio space, but when TEDCO saw the developer didn't have the money, they allowed them to continue negotiating the deal along with a linked rezoning and removal of their current studio site at 629 Eastern Avenue, which is now going to be a Wal-Mart / Smartcentre.
Forget for a moment the effect on the film indsutry of freezing new studios with the no-comp clause and gutting their existing Studio District, along with its main stock of inexpensive, converted studios. This deal is also going to decimate Queen Street East with a "Smart" centre / big box retail site on Eastern between Carlaw and Leslie.
All for the sake of a new waterfront complex that will help try to lure a "big-budget" feature away from B.C. The sad truth is these big ones come along once a year, if that, and their big budget means big stars who prefer to be in B.C. anyway, a short flight from home.
Also important to remember is that Hulk is currently shooting their stage work ENTIRELY in the "old" studios that the developer claims are obsolete and need to be removed.
These facts, combined with the fact that they have a 99-year lease but only have to operate as a studio for 10 years, they are heavily tax-subsidized, and they froze all new studio development with their no-comp clause, all make for a death blow to the film studio industry and a horrible precedent for waterfront redevelopment.