Georgia’s movie and TV enterprise has been booming ever since 2008, when it started providing a 20% transferable tax credit score with a ten% bump for together with the state’s peach emblem within the credit. In latest years, it’s hosted “The Exorcist: Believer” and quite a few huge Marvel initiatives, together with “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and the upcoming Disney+ collection “Ironheart,” in addition to the Netflix hit “Stranger Things.”
As the variety of productions has grown, so has the infrastructure to assist it. According to an April 2023 report by FilmLA Research, Georgia already had 3 million sq. toes of soundstage house by the top of 2021 — up from 2 million a 12 months earlier — together with Trilith Studios (previously Pinewood Atlanta) and EU/Screen Gems Studios. That put it forward of New York (2.8 million sq. toes) and second solely to California (6.2 million sq. toes) within the U.S. And the quantity retains rising.
This month, Great Point Studios is scheduled to open a 500,000-square-foot purpose-built facility that includes 12 soundstages in Douglas County, 20 minutes exterior of midtown Atlanta. It will hit the bottom operating with a pair of anchor tenants, Lionsgate and Spain’s Mediapro, which have made 12- and 10-year commitments, respectively.
“When we checked out Atlanta as a market, we realized that about 55% of the phases there are actually poorly reconfigured warehouses,” says Great Point Studios CEO Robert Halmi. “And that’s not the form of purpose-built phases that individuals are actually on the lookout for.”
Great Point’s competitors consists of one other new purpose-built facility, Electric Owl Studios, opened in June 2023. Located simply northwest of Atlanta in Decatur, the 312,000-square-foot, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold-certified complicated payments itself as “the greenest studio on earth.”
“The expertise pool in Atlanta is wonderful and it’s a progressive metropolis, in order that mixture actually makes it a lovely place to be,” says Thai Randolph, CEO of Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat, which is ready to open a manufacturing complicated in Atlanta in November to service its Georgia-based productions, together with its “Die Hart” streaming collection, in addition to its podcast and branded content material enterprise.
Multi-hyphenate Tyler Perry has lengthy been a serious presence within the metropolis. In 2019, he opened the second iteration of Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta on 330 acres of the previous army base Fort McPherson. Its earlier location, now referred to as Pangaea Studios, is owned by Voltron Global, which has up to date the power, including an LED quantity to facilitate digital manufacturing, and branched out into stay occasions, internet hosting the three-day Revolt World music competition that attracted greater than 30,000 individuals in September. Earlier this 12 months, the corporate launched a manufacturing arm to self-finance, bundle and produce movie and
TV initiatives.
“With our expertise, we give an answer to create in a less expensive means with out sacrificing the creativity,” says Voltron Global CEO Steve Greenberg.
Production spending in Georgia hit a file $4.4 billion in fiscal 12 months 2022, but it surely dropped to $4.1 billion in fiscal 12 months 2023, which closed on the finish of June. It’s attainable some producers had been spooked when the state’s Senate Finance Committee voted to cap the motivation at $900 million and make the credit score non-transferable in March 2022. Fortunately for the Georgia manufacturing neighborhood, the committee’s invoice was pulled earlier than it may very well be voted on by the complete senate. Still, there’s no telling when and if the problem will come up once more. But Michael Hahn, who co-founded Electric Owl with fellow former Third Rail Studios govt Dan Rosenfelt, will not be too frightened.
“If there’s a cap in some unspecified time in the future, Georgia’s nonetheless going to be essentially the most reasonably priced manufacturing hub simply because the price of phases and the price of dwelling are decrease right here,” says Han.
