Hollywood the big winner in $140 million film funding boost

Hollywood blockbusters looking to shoot in Australia will have access to a new $140 million pot of taxpayer funds over four years from July 1.

The boost to the location offset for foreign film production was announced by federal government ministers Julie Bishop (foreign affairs), Mitch Fifield (arts) and Steven Ciobo (trade, tourism and investment) at the Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast on Friday morning.

The studio – which is the largest in Australia, with nine sound stages and an enormous backlot – stands to be the largest beneficiary of the funding boost.

"This funding … will ensure our film industry remains vibrant and competitive, and gives us the opportunity to showcase our talent both on screen and behind the scenes to the rest of the world," said Senator Fifield in a statement.

Mr Ciobo added it meant "more international films will be made here in Australia".

That is indeed likely, as the boost means Australia's location offset – a rebate available to foreign productions shooting here – will effectively be raised from 16.5 per cent of the money they spend in Australia to 30 per cent for the four years the program is slated to run.

That satisfies the demands of those sections of the industry that rely on what is known as "footloose" productions – primarily crew, studios and associated services.

They have been lobbying for years for a permanent increase in the offset that would bring Australia into line with many other competing locations around the world. However, successive governments have resisted a move that would enshrine that increase, preferring instead to supplement the offset on an ad-hoc basis with grants to individual productions (most famously the $22 million allocated to Disney for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, then reallocated to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales when the former film, which had been set to star Brad Pitt, fell over).

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop strikes a pose with Wonder Woman after announcing the funding boost at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast.Credit: AAP

While that approach equated to a 30 per cent rebate, it was slow, cumbersome and uncertain. And because Hollywood studios often make decisions about where to shoot very quickly, depending on the availability of key talent and finance within a narrow window of time, Australia had missed out on several big-ticket productions by being too slow to respond.

While no details have yet been revealed about the mechanics of the new scheme, it is expected that it will include capacity to approve and release funding quickly.

A recent report commissioned by Ausfilm, the body responsible for attracting such productions to Australia, claimed that the value of footloose productions – Hollywood films with a budget greater than $US15 million, made outside California – was between $US4.6 billion and $US7.4 billion in 2015 (the range reflects different methodologies for calculating budgets).

Angelina Jolie on the set of Unbroken, which she made in Australia.Credit: Geoff O'Neill

Many of those productions were shot in other states within the US – Georgia and Louisiana are particularly attractive due to their generous rebate schemes – but almost half of the 91 footloose productions in 2015 were produced, in part or in full, overseas.

The UK (20 out of 41 foreign productions) and Canada (11) were by far the most appealing destinations. Australia hosted just five.

Ausfilm CEO Debra Richards hailed the increase as "a tremendous boost to the Australian businesses in the industry" that would "also provide work not just in our screen sector but also across a wide range of sectors in Australia".

Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner also welcomed the news, saying it brought greater certainty to the industry.

Expect more like this: The Dwayne Johnson movie San Andreas was filmed on the Gold Coast in 2014.Credit: Warner Bros.

"At least 10 per cent of our workforce is employed on these productions and rely on a robust, solid and successful local industry that has been built up over decades," he said.

The boost does little, however, to address long-standing concerns about the uncertain future faced by a sector struggling to adapt to the rapidly changing film, television and streaming environment.

The government is understood to have already received the screen content review conducted by the department of communications and the arts, a review that was expected to address such complex issues as offsets for TV production, direct support for funding agencies, and content quotas for TV and their possible extension to streaming and digital platforms such as Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime and YouTube.

The government has not yet released the findings of that report, however, though it may just have given some faint indication that it has at least heard the concerns of the industry.

In announcing the $140 million location offset boost, the ministers said: "This is the first measure of a number of reforms being considered by the Turnbull Government to further support local production."

Hollywood and its local partners may be rubbing their hands with glee today, but for everyone else it remains a matter of wait and see.

Facebook: karlquinnjournalist Podcast: The Clappers Twitter: @karlkwin