Tag Archives: Industry News

Industry News

Cinespace Film Studios signs Netflix to multi-year lease

From a media release:

Cinespace Film Studios (Cinespace) today announced the signing of a multi-year lease with Netflix to expand its film and television production presence inside Marine Terminal 51 and the Cruise Ship Terminal, owned by PortsToronto and under long-term lease to Cinespace. The news comes the morning Netflix announced the creation of its Toronto production hub, expanding its production presence in Canada.

Netflix’s new production hub in Toronto will take advantage of the area’s globally-renowned and award-winning film production infrastructure, which includes deep pools of creative talent, technicians, suppliers and filming locations. Toronto’s overall film and television production volumes have reached $2 billion in recent years and have resulted in tens of thousands of jobs both directly and indirectly.

In addition to Toronto’s Netflix activity, Northern Ontario has also benefitted from several Netflix productions, demonstrating that film and television volumes rely on Ontario’s overall competitiveness as a film jurisdiction.

For Mayor Tory, the creation of a Netflix production hub in Toronto is a major milestone in his years of lobbying the Hollywood studios and digital platforms to send more business to Toronto, as well as his continuous urging of City agencies to audit their inventories for large sites that could be leased to the film industry.

About Cinespace Film Studios:

Cinespace Film Studios – a 30 years-running family business – is the largest private owner, operator and developer of studios for film, TV and digital media production in North America, with over 2 million square feet of space on over 100 acres in both Toronto and Chicago.  Through direct advisory relationships with local government and through meaningful partnerships and internship programs with institutions – including York University in Toronto and DePaul University in Chicago – Cinespace is a market leader in infrastructure development for the screen-based industries.

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Industry News

Netflix creates production hub in Toronto

From a media release:

Today, Netflix announced it is creating a dedicated production hub in Toronto, choosing two studio spaces in Toronto that expand its production presence in Canada.

At Cinespace Studios, Netflix will lease four sound stages, along with office space and support space totaling approximately 164,000 square feet.

At Pinewood Toronto Studios, Netflix will also lease four sound stages and adjacent office space comprising a total footprint of approximately 84,580 square feet.

In total, both sites will support upcoming Netflix series and films, including the horror anthology series Guillermo del Toro Presents Ten After Midnight, the film Let It Snow and others, which will provide production jobs for up to 1,850 Canadians per year. The new spaces add to Netflix’s existing physical production footprint in Canada, which already includes a lease of British Columbia’s Martini Film Studios, as well as production sites Netflix sets up across Canada on a production-by-production basis.

Netflix has produced many series and films in Canada starting in 2012 with horror series Hemlock Grove (Toronto), and including the Emmy Award-winning A Series of Unfortunate Events (Vancouver), Lost in Space (Vancouver), The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Vancouver) and films 1922 (Vancouver), The Package (multiple locations in British Columbia), Game Over Man (Vancouver), Christmas Inheritance (Northern Ontario), Death Note (Vancouver), How It Ends (Winnipeg), Hold the Dark (Calgary and Kananaskis Country), The Holiday Calendar (Northern Ontario), In The Tall Grass (multiple locations in Ontario, and Calgary), In the Shadow of the Moon (Toronto), Polar (Toronto), Always Be My Maybe (Vancouver), Good Sam (Montreal), I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (Ottawa) and The Christmas Chronicles (Toronto). Current series filming in Canada include V-Wars (Northern Ontario) and October Faction (Toronto), along with an untitled film starring Sam Worthington, directed by Brad Anderson (Winnipeg), and an untitled film to be directed by Patrice Laliberté in Quebec.

In addition, Netflix has partnered with Canadian production partners to co-produce series for global audiences including Anne with an E (CBC), Travelers (Showcase), Frontier (Discovery Canada) and limited series Alias Grace (CBC). In 2017, Netflix committed to investing $500 million in content production in Canada over the next five years and is currently on track to exceed that investment.

About Netflix
Netflix is the world’s leading internet entertainment service with 139 million memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

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Children's Programming, Industry News

CBC/Radio Canada doubles down on kids programming

From a media release:

At the annual international Kidscreen Summit, CBC/Radio-Canada President and CEO Catherine Tait today announced the public broadcaster’s expanded commitment to serve a wider range of young audiences in Canada, including acquired content and new original French and English-language programming from Canadian creators for CBC Kids and Radio-Canada Jeunesse. The public broadcaster’s goal is to double the amount of content for young audiences on the CBC Gem streaming service over the next year to match the amount of content already available on ICI TOU.TV.

As a leader in serving young children, with one of Canada’s most-watched English-language preschool services on weekday and weekend mornings, CBC Kids is now looking to reach school-aged and tween audiences with new programming. With a focus on live-action scripted series for the 6-12 and tween demographics, new original programming includes tween action-adventure series DETENTION ADVENTURE (10×11, LoCo Motion Pictures and Broken Compass Films). This is CBC’s first original kids scripted series for CBC Gem and will premiere this spring. Following the recent launch of CBC Kids News, CBC is also building on its commitment to serve young Canadians with trustworthy content with the greenlight of LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX (35×5, Echo Media), the English-language version of On parle de sexe, which will provide tweens with age-appropriate information on healthy sexuality. It will premiere as the first original factual series for kids on CBC Gem in 2020. CBC Kids is nominated for 10 Kidscreen Awards this year.

These new series are part of CBC’s goal to double the amount of kids’ digital content available on CBC Gem over the next year. This commitment includes acquired content from Canadian and international distributors, with the streaming service currently offering more than 200 hours of advertising-free programming for young Canadians.

Already a leader in children’s programming in the French market, having doubled its offer on ICI TOU.TV et ICI TOU.TV EXTRA this past year, Radio-Canada Jeunesse will increase its short-form content offer for the tween and teenage groups and strengthen its 360-degree platform approach for successful brands. New original programming launching this year includes two fiction series for the 13-17 age group: NOMADES (10×10, Trio Orange) and AVEC MOI (10×10, Attraction Images). Also set to launch this year is a new magazine style production called 14 MILLE MILLIONS DE CHOSES À SAVOIR (35×15’, KOTV), introducing young audiences to some incredible star power, such as Pierre-Luc Funk, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais, Gabrielle Fontaine and Anna Beaupré Malounda.

CBC/Radio-Canada will also continue to explore national and international partnerships to tell Canadian stories on a more significant scale and share them with audiences around the world. Examples of some new partnerships include tween sci-fi action adventure ENDLINGS (12×30; Sinking Ship Entertainment for CBC/Radio-Canada, Hulu, NDR, CBBC, ABC Australia, Universal Kids US, NRK, SVT) and MOLLY OF DENALI (38×30; Atomic Cartoons for CBC Kids, WGBH, PBS), an animated series for young children that tells the story of a 10-year-old Indigenous girl and shines a spotlight on Indigenous storytelling and perspectives.

Continuing to build on its amazing success across all of our platforms, L’AGENT JEAN (40×90’’, Happy Camper Media) is back with new episodes in French and English, in partnership with TFO and CBC Kids. Also launching in the fall, is a new live action fiction series for the 4 to 7 age group, in addition to another upcoming live action fiction series for the same age group.

CBC/Radio-Canada’s expanded programming for kids is part of our commitment to provide Canadian parents with a trustworthy digital platform where they can find safe, high-quality, educational and entertaining content for their children.

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