PRODUCTION
UK FILM STUDIOS
RECENT STUDIO BUILDS AND EXPANSION
Feb ‘22 Shepperton Studios strikes long-term deal with Amazon Prime Video for exclusive use of its new facilities, including nine sound stages. The Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol embarks on £12m expansion and redevelopment which will add another three stages, taking its total footprint to 11 stages. Jan ‘22 Pinewood Studios wins permission to expand once again, adding more sound stages, a training hub and visitor attraction Space Entertainment Enterprises unveils plans to build the first ever film and TV studio in space, set to be ready from 2024 Dec ‘21
Shinfield Studios, part of Blackhall Global Partners, receives full planning for 18 sound stages in Berkshire. Four sound stages have already been completed. Space Studios: Manchester City Council lodges plans for an extra 70,000 sq ft of capacity. A phase two expansion is already underway RD Studios announces plans for five sound stages in Park Royal, London, opening in April 2022. Pyramids Studios near Edinburgh, home to Good Omens 2, is acquired by property company London and Regional for further development. Versa Studios launches London facility, with plans to open more studios in Leeds and Manchester.
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televisual.com Spring 2022
the crown s5 Amazon, for example, has a raft of projects
underway, including the most expensive series ever in The Lord of the Rings. The demand for studio space is UK wide too. His
Dark Materials shot in Wales, Outlander in Scotland, and Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland. That’s not to forget long-running film franchises
like the Marvel, Star Wars and Mission Impossible movies which have based themselves in the UK.
THE LONG GAME “We have a stage demand level that we have never experienced before,” says Adrian Wootton, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission.
we have a stage demand level that we have never experienced before
High end TV, he says, has changed the paradigm.
“They are not going in for two or three months, and then leaving – they are in there for years if a show is successful.” A long-running series, like Bridgerton or The
Crown, might occupy space at a studio for years, taking it off the market for use by other producers for long periods of time. “As a result, the studios and the streamers are
very keen on gaining much, much longer leases and investing into or buying into stage space in a way that was unheard of just a few years ago,” Wootton. Netflix, for example, has taken long term leases at
Shepperton and Longcross, while Disney has locked up most of the studio space at Pinewood. Amazon Prime Video has signed a long-term deal with Shepperton Studios, taking nine sound stages that are part of its redevelopment. Amazon is reportedly leasing the site for well over ten years. Demand for long term deals has galvanised the
interest of private investors in the studio market. “It has stimulated the property developers, the landowners and the planning authorities to act in a way that they’ve never done before,” says Wootton. Suddenly, studios are sexy – certainly compared
to once favoured sectors like retail and commercial offices, which have been hard hit by the rise in online shopping and remote working.
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