Why Hollywood powerbrokers are descending on Melbourne
Victorian locations are being transformed into scenes from LA and New York as Tinseltown scrambles to produce TV shows and movies during the COVID-19 crisis.
Confidential
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Hollywood powerbrokers say Victorian locations and talent are on par with New York and LA as work begins on a blockbuster TV series in which Melbourne landmarks will replicate California hot spots.
“It’s a competitive industry because Hollywood wants to keep production there,” Richard Ross, senior vice president of production for Universal Television, told the Sunday Herald Sun.
But Tinseltown is scrambling for alternative places to make film and television while the US still deals with the COVID-19 crisis.
Mr Ross added: “We have a voracious appetite for content but we can’t always do it in Los Angeles, or the US, so we have to go elsewhere, and Melbourne has got the locations and talent — as good as I’ve seen in LA or NY.”
US cast and crew are in Melbourne to shoot La Brea, a big-budget special effects-driven drama set in Los Angeles, which tracks a family’s survival after they are separated by a massive sinkhole that mysteriously opens in the heart of the city.
The giant portal, which swallows buildings, roads and people, is a time tunnel that transports everything back 10,000 years.
La Brea stars Ione Skye (Arrested Development), Nicholas Gonzalez (The Good Doctor), Eoin Macken (The Night Shift), Natalie Zea (The Shield), Jon Seda (Chicago PD) and Victorian actor Rohan Mirchandaney (Hotel Mumbai).
The show’s creators NBC Universal and Universal Studio Group will spend $70 million making the 10-episode series in Australia, with around $60 million landing in Victoria.
Filming began last week, with Bay St, Port Melbourne, replicating Wilshire Boulevard in mid-town LA, and Kew’s Yarra Boulevard cast as a match for the Hollywood Hills.
Sites in Mt Macedon will also be used for the prehistoric scenes, and to build replicas of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Petersen Automotive Museum.
“We found a large space out there where we can destroy the buildings that fall into the sinkhole,” Mr Ross said. “It’s perfect.’
The show’s creator David Appelbaum said: “The show does take place in modern LA, and (Melbourne) offers a lot of opportunities that can match that.”
He said filming had begun in Bay St, “for the opening sequence in Wilshire Boulevard,” and Yarra Boulevard for homes “that can approximate” houses in the Hollywood Hills.
Earlier this week, Bay St was shut down and transformed into frantic LA street, complete with gridlock traffic, yellow school buses, cop cars and LAPD officers directing traffic at an intersection.
The family separated by the disaster live in the Hollywood Hills, which is why producers are shooting in Kew for real estate lookalikes.
La Brea is also filming at a car park near Docklands as a stand-in for downtown LA.
“Melbourne offers fantastic opportunities in terms of geography, location,” Mr Appelbaum, whose producer credits include The Mentalist and NCIS: New Orleans, said.
“Just seeing the epic landscapes we’re able to shoot in, it has really accomplished what we want with the scope and scale of the production.”
Of course, there are also COVID-climate realities to consider.
“Melbourne is offering things we couldn’t do, potentially, back home,” Mr Appelbaum said. “We are very COVID safe here on set, but knowing it’s not as big an issue takes the burden off.”
The TV series will shoot in Victoria until September, and post production will also be done in Melbourne.
La Brea is one of four major TV productions filming in Victoria.
Paramount Television and Apple TV is shooting Shantaram shooting at Docklands Studios, NBC Universal and Matchbox Pictures is making Fires in Melbourne and regional Victoria, and the Netflix series Surviving Summer is filming on the Surf Coast.
But La Brea, lured Down Under with a $9.6 million grant as part of the Federal Government’s location incentive program, is a marquee event to match the Dwayne Johnson-inspired sitcom, Young Rock, which was shot in Queensland, and Joe Exotic, based on the notorious Tiger King, which will also be made in the Sunshine State.
Mr Ross, who is also overseeing Young Rock, said Melbourne appeared on his radar for La Brea after his experience in Queensland.
“We started shooting La Brea in Vancouver, then COVID came, and we only had four days in the can,” he said. “Because of my experience in Queensland, I said, ‘Let’s look at Australia.’”
He added: “The incentives are always a big attraction for us. However, as more content is being produced around the world, we have to look around the world for spaces to shoot.
We’ll definitely be back.”
Mr Appelbaum has “high hopes” La Brea will be picked up for a second season after it debuts in September, and production stays in Melbourne.
“The infrastructure we’re sitting up here — the big sets, and also the people we’re working with, these are things we’ll continue to utilise. It would certainly be our hope to continue to do that,” he said.
Victorian Creative Industries Minister Danny Pearson said the project will create work for 295 local businesses, and jobs for 290 cast and crew.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Melbourne to shine on the global stage,” Mr Pearson said. “I’m so pleased and delighted that downtown Melbourne will be seen as downtown LA.”
Federal Arts Minister Paul Fletcher added: “Around the world, we’re seen as a place where COVID has been managed well, and therefore we’re an attractive place for global productions to come.”
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