Location shooting in Canada’s Hollywood surged last year, encouraged by a low Canadian dollar and generous movie tax breaks, local indie producers reported Wednesday.
The jump from 27.3 percent year-on-year to CAN$6.71 billion (US$4.94 billion) for total foreign film and TV production activity north of the border came as US TV series such as The Handmaid’s Tale, the Flash And Star Trek: Strange New Worlds recorded locally, according to a report from the Canadian Media Production Association.
The number of foreign, mostly Hollywood, feature films shot in Canada rose from 141 in 2021 to 171 last year, with total budget spending rising from CAN$1.38 billion to CAN$1.66 billion (US$1. 2 billion) in 2022. That jump of 20 percent in the volume of foreign film production offset a 4.1 percent decline in the total volume of foreign TV series production in Canada in 2022.
The number of mostly American TV shows recorded locally last year fell slightly from 277 to 258, with the total budget spend for the series going from CAN$3.44 billion to CAN$3.3 billion (US$2.43 billion). ).
Despite the drag on US production in Canada at the start of the COVID-19 crisis and currently with US writers hitting south of the border, Canada’s film and TV production sector continues to pull Hollywood north thanks to low Canadian dollar, compared to the US dollar, and generous tax breaks that allow Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal to compete with rival locations such as Louisiana and Georgia.
In recent years, US streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have sent more content to be shot in Canada, with Vancouver taking advantage of its proximity to Los Angeles and Toronto and Montreal receiving their fair share of foreign film and TV projects coming from major European co-production partners in the UK, France and Germany.
