In a long-awaited move, Australia has increased its financial incentive to attract international productions to 30% from 16.5%.
The legislation to pass the newly-enhanced Location Offset has taken so long to pass through partliament that it has been backdated to allow projects that began principal photography on or before July 1, 2023 to be eligible.
Productions must have budgets of at least A$20m (US$13.3m) for features or A$1.5m (US$1m) per hour for a TV series.
Productions must also satisfy a minimum training expenditure test or establish or upgrade permanent Australian film infrastructure or invest in a qualifying training programme; use one or more Australian providers to deliver post, digital and visual effects for the production; and provide specific data including employment of Australian crew and use of Australian businesses as part of the application process.
Projects set to film in Australia include Amazon MGM Studios/AGBO’s The Bluff, Amazon MGM Studios/Skydance’s Balls Up, and Sony’s untitled shark thriller in Victoria.
According to Screen Australia’s drama report, international spend on drama production and post-production reached a record-breakingA$1.22bn (US$780m) in 2023. This was driven by titles such as Univeral’s The Fall Guy, Warner Bros., Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire alongside post, digital and visual effects (PDV) work on titles that did not shoot in Australia such as Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2 and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.
This story originally appeared on our sister site KFTV
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