By Linda Morris and Garry Maddox
Three prime Sydney locations – at Oran Park, Silverwater and the inner suburbs – are vying to become home to the city’s first new film and television studio complex for a quarter of a century.
The state arts agency, Create NSW, is conducting market soundings on behalf of the Minns government to assess the need for – and private sector interest in – new sound stages and screen production facilities for Australia’s screen capital.
The Minns government is conducting market soundings to assess the need for a second studio film complex in Sydney, including a private plan for Oran Park, in Sydney’s south-west.Credit: Greenfields Development
It has flushed out private consortia proposals that include a film and television studio mega-complex next to the Silverwater Correctional Complex.
Also in development is a separate investment plan for multiple sound stages on a remnant industrial site within five kilometres of the CBD, the so-called sweet spot for the screen industry. It’s believed to have the backing of a major American studio.
Arts Minister John Graham said the information gathered would inform the government’s next steps.
“Sydney needs additional film studio infrastructure,” he said. “There are two key factors driving increased demand: the permanent 30 per cent federal Location Offset has made the state more affordable for film and television production.
“At the same time, production costs in the USA and the UK have increased significantly. This has resulted in heightened demand for international filming locations like NSW.”
Graham said the needs of the sector were complex and there were pressures on the upcoming budget, which was why “the NSW government, through Create NSW and Screen NSW, is currently conducting a targeted-market sounding process with participants from the screen sector”.
Disney Studios Australia has operated nine sound stages at Moore Park since taking over the Fox Studios site, which has been hosting production since 1998.
Last month, the NSW Coalition’s assistant arts spokesperson, Jacqui Munro, told budget estimates smaller productions were squeezed out of the studios when international productions came through.
With Queensland and Victoria investing heavily in sound stage facilities, the lack of vital cultural infrastructure is increasingly placing Sydney at a competitive disadvantage, producers say.
Celebrated Australian director George Miller based the Sydney shoots for Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga at Fox-then-Disney Studios. But when Moore Park was booked out, he shot his 2022 film Three Thousand Years of Longing in an old industrial building at Melrose Park, near West Ryde, since demolished for apartments.
Miller said the key was finding the right location “that can’t be too far out” from existing infrastructure such as transport, post-production facilities, a backlot, and even places to eat.
“It’s not just a question of building the site,” he said. “It’s not like ‘build it, and they will come’. It’s really got to be thought through holistically to make it really work. And the key to it, of course, is the talent.
“If you can go to places where, along with the sound stages and the infrastructure, you have the talent pool [to make world-class film and television] then that makes it very attractive.”
The most developed proposal is for Oran Park in the south-western suburbs, where plans for three sound stages, workshops, offices, a helipad and a nearby 26-hectare backlot have been lodged with Camden Council.
Thor: Love and Thunder was produced in Australia at the Disney Studios in Moore Park. Credit: Marvel
Representatives of the Greenfields Development Company, which turned a former motor racing track into one of the country’s fastest-growing urban areas in the past 15 years, have met with Create NSW and Screen NSW to discuss the development.
The Oran Park Studios is projected to cost $127 million to build and, if approved this year, will open in late 2027.
Greenfields’ general manager Mick Owens said that while the new Western Sydney Airport was “15 minutes up the road”, flight paths would not be over Oran Park, so plane noise would not be an issue.
“There’s a huge labour force in the south-west area of Sydney,” he said. “The location is easy enough [with] motorways and arterial roads to get to.”
As the site is relatively remote from post-production facilities in the inner city, and potentially too far from where international talent are likely to base themselves, Owens said the studio would more likely attract films budgeted from $30 million to $150 million and TV shows.
The Herald has been informed of two other private proposals seeking government involvement: one touted for a greenfield site near Silverwater jail and Newington Armory. Driving the proposal is believed to be an Australian Oscar-winning producer and a Sydney based talent manager.
The consortium behind Sydney Studios is seeking a peppercorn lease on Crown-owned green space and will be meeting government representatives this coming week.
Its plan have the backing of Business Sydney’s executive director Paul Nicolaou, who expressed confidence in the consortium’s industry knowledge and experience to make the plan happen.
“There is certainly room in the market for another studio,” he said. “Existing studios on the Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne are booked up for years well into the future, a clear sign there is great opportunity here.
Renders of Sydney Studios, proposed for green space next to Silverwater jail. Credit: Sydney Studios
“We don’t want to lose any film and television production business to other states when we have so much to offer.”
The third plan proposes new studio and production facilities in an as-yet undisclosed inner-city location that includes housing. The project could provide new campuses for the national training schools like the National Institute of Dramatic Arts.
It is believed that this mixed development would be the only proposal that helps the government meet its ambitious housing targets for city infill area.
NSW is home to more than half of Australia’s screen industry and estimated to be worth about $1.2 billion to the local economy.
The NSW government’s film strategy identified the need for new studio infrastructure last year.
Ausfilm, which promotes Australia to the film world, has warned of a looming undersupply of skilled film crew and a shortage of high-tech production facilities in Sydney.
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