• Dozens of international projects have decamped to Australia, lured by tax breaks and Covid-free production opportunities while the rest of the world’s studios remain shuttered.
• Big name talent, like Nicole Kidman and Baz Luhrmann are using their clout to bring more and more business in, with a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the Australian film industry.
• Since lockdowns ended Federal and State governments have been supportive, with new incentives and infrastructure to encourage long-term investment by international players.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

If you follow Chris Hemsworth, Idris Elba or any number of Marvel-attached actors, you will have noticed a pronounced uptick in the number of Hollywood’s elite who have decamped to Australia for the summer.

Specifically, a particularly well-documented 80s-themed party held little over a week ago and featuring Elba and Damon in matching Adidas tracksuits, and brothers Liam and Chris Hemsworth channeling your favourite 80s B-movie.

While Sydney in specific and Australia in general have always been attractive locations for studios seeking a diverse set of locations and favourable tax incentives, Australia’s film sector appears to be experiencing a Golden Age, with an explosion of local and inbound productions projects currently underway in almost every state.

Natalie Portman arrived around Christmas to begin production on Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder”, and now Hemsworth, Taika Waititi, and Matt Damon have joined her; Nicole Kidman is filming “Nine Perfect Strangers” in regional NSW; Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis production is currently shooting on the Gold Coast.

Ron Howard’s new project is in pre-production there too.

Netflix has also directed a series of current projects to Australia. “Pieces of Her”, starring Toni Collette, is now shooting in New South Wales; “Clickbait”, co-created by Australian director Tony Ayres, has wrapped shooting in Victoria; “Escape From Spiderhead”, starring Chris Hemsworth, also finished up.

Three project from Matchbox Pictures, part of NBCUniversal Studios, are filming back-to-back in Queensland over 18 months including “Young Rock”, “Joe Exotic” and “Irreverent”.

Most recently, Minister for the Arts Paul Fletcher announced the Location Incentive Program would bring over George Clooney and Julia Roberts to shoot “Ticket To Paradise” later this year in Queensland.

“We bounced back”

CEO of Screen Australia Graeme Mason says the effort — and cash — thrown at Australian film and TV over the past few months has been “huge.”

He said that once it was clear Australia would be able to get the virus under control, states paid all the extra costs to get local productions up and running asap.

“Every show that stopped except one has gone back. And almost all of them have now finished.”

Mason says that actually, headaches for content production have come predominantly from state border closures, as opposed to inbound flights — unsurprisingly it’s easier to charter a private plane into the country than get past state’s strict border patrols.

And once people overseas noticed the Australian industry humming away, international producers started looking for ways to quickly decamp and get working as well.

Much of this activity was largely driven by well-known Australians bringing projects with them, or encouraging projects to come here.

For example, Kidman’s new project following the success of HBO’s “Big Little Lies”, an adaptation of cult Australian author Liane Moriarty’s “Nine Perfect Strangers” was meant to film in California in early 2021.

But just three weeks before shooting was set to commence, Nicole and Australian film producer Bruna Papandrea changed tack, flying the entire team of staff and stars to Australia to make it in the Northern Rivers region of NSW instead.

Papandrea is now shooting Netflix series “Pieces of Her”, starring Toni Collette, in NSW.

“It’s an American show on screen,” Mason said, “but because of Bruna and Toni being here they can say ‘look we can make the show here’ rather than some part of America you wouldn’t want to be necessarily.”

“A lot of the inbounds that are here, have actually been also driven by their Australian connections, or Australian people involved.”

A new Golden Age?

The surest sign the Aus industry could be heading towards boom times are rumours, first reported by Daily Telegraph’s Confidential last month, that film production powerhouse Marvel is planning a long-term move out of the US to Sydney’s Moore Park.

The insider industry source suggested it could stay for “the foreseeable future”, which is suspected to be at least five years.

There’s nowhere else in the world where films can be full shot with minimal restrictions, the source said, adding “Sydney is the perfect place for the Marvel blockbusters because most are essentially shot in front of a green screen. The whole studio is essentially transplanting itself from the US.”

As vaccines roll out across the US and Europe, it’s a fair assumption that Hollywood will return to pre-COVID-19 routines.

There’s a possibility that the current situation will simply be a glorious blip — but Australian governments are working hard to make sure that’s not the case.

Since the Australian film sector opened up, federal and state governments have been furiously upscaling their tax incentives, with Minister for the Arts Paul Fletcher supporting further funding.

Current federal incentives for inbound movies include the Location tax offset: 16.5% of the company’s total QAPE (qualifying Australian production expenditure) on movies costing over $15 million; and the post, digital and visual effects tax offset: designed to attract post-production, digital and visual effects production to Australia, no matter where the film is shot.

According to Mason, state governments are scrambling to follow up on the federal government’s tax incentives while the talent is here and paying attention, to make their states as attractive a film location as possible.

Last year the Federal Government announced a top up of $400 million to the existing Location Incentive Program along with a four year extension to 2026, designed to drive productions to use Australia as a location.

The Victorian Government has just announced additional money to their state agency, major upgrades to their studio space in central Melbourne.

The West Australian government says they will build a $100 million studio facility in Fremantle.

Staffing is an issue — outside key hubs like Sydney and the Gold Coast most places aren’t set up to scale up for a major Hollywood production, and he says there’s been a struggle over trained crews and infrastructure, but Mason thinks supply will appear to meet demand.

“It’s made everyone go, ‘how do we make sure this is not a blip when everything else opens up,” says Mason.

“That’s something we [Screen Australia] and others are looking at right now to ensure we’re best placed to keep this going and are able to actually service it going forward.”

He hopes international players will also see the potential in homegrown talent, and potentially invest in more local productions, too.

Amazon has recently invested in a “Packed to the Rafters” reboot, and there could be more to come.

“So many people, once they’ve filmed here once [because of COVID-19 safety] I think they go ‘the crew is amazing, the locations are great.’

“We believe we’ll see an uptick in ongoing business.”

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