Casino Royale`s Barrandov studios set to expand in Prague
11-Feb-2006 • Bond News
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In the eyes of many, the studios' owner, Moravia Steel, has seemed at a loss as to how to market and modernize the 11-studio complex that's hosted major features since before World War II. So the appointment last May of Vìslava Piegzová, with her background in finance, not film, did not inspire much hope.
Now, with Barrandov's fanfare announcement that it's boosting Prague's film production capacity with a new 4,000 square meter (43,100 square foot), 100 million Kè ($4.5 million) studio, a collective sigh of relief can be heard within the local film industry. And it's now clear, they say, that Piegzová indeed understands finance â big-picture Hollywood finance.
"What Barrandov is doing is exactly what it should have done a long time ago," says Tomáš Krejèà of production services company Milk & Honey, which is planning its own major studio launch later this year.
"Prague is in desperate need of more stage capacity. I salute them!"
The heated, soundproof high-tech studio, set to start construction in spring, will be divisible into three smaller studios and will be twice the size of the biggest space Barrandov now has at its several sites around Prague.
Add to this the company's back lot, which won high praises from legendary director Roman Polanski after he completed shooting Oliver Twist there last autumn, and it adds up to a centerpiece of the Czech film business â at least in terms of appeal to big, foreign producers.
Such international projects bring in by far the biggest share of moviemaking revenue, valued at roughly $300 million (7.1 billion Kè) annually, although foreign productions account for a fairly small percentage of the work actually shot here. Czech fairy tales and other made-for-TV projects, local feature films, foreign commercials and music videos are the day-to-day fare for most studios in town, including Barrandov.
To the outside world, however, Prague is where James Bond defected.
Producer Eon's decision last summer to shoot much of the new Casino Royale in Prague, now filming at Barrandov along with The Omen 666 and Young Hannibal, a prequel to the Hannibal Lecter horror franchise, shook up the British film industry â 18 previous Bond flicks were shot at the UK's venerable Pinewood. Now the UK is struggling to package itself as still an affordable, quality location at which to shoot your $50 million feature. Some have estimated Bond's budget at closer to double that, but relatively few productions reach those heights.
Unfortunately for the British, most of Europe these days is packaging itself in much the same terms. Bulgaria is clearly star-struck, bending over backward to promote its massive Boyana studio, a holdover from the Cold War that nevertheless beat out Prague last summer for The Black Dahlia, with Bulgaria standing in for 1940s Los Angeles. (Barrandov, of course, is even older, dating back to the First Republic, when it was built by the Havel family, who even in the 1930s was aggressively promoting the notion of Hollywood east.)
In Spain, the Ciudad de la Luz studio, a $324 million juggernaut in Cadiz, has just been completed in the hopes of bringing more Hollywood coin to Iberia. Meanwhile, Hungary is competing with hefty tax incentives for foreigners that Prague film people have been trying unsuccessfully to wring out of the Czech government for years.
Clearly the stakes have gone up and Barrandov's decisive move represents the most significant breakthrough in years, short of dramatic state rebate offers or shooting costs returning to mid-1990s levels.
producer, is the feast-or-famine nature of the production business.
The arrival of Casino Royale was toasted roundly (as was The Omen 666 and Young Hannibal) as coups for Prague.
But if another production of any size were looking to shoot here at the same time for more than a few weeks, things were going to get tight. And business before these three moved in was slow, with empty studio halls worrying locals.
Now, most say, the city is looking more ready for gluts.
"Prague needs to be ready to service as many films as possible," says Minkowski. "And the first thing everybody's asking is, 'What's the stage space like in Prague?' "
The rise of the fantasy film and the growing role of computer-generated effects make studio space even more critical, he adds. "These days so many movies are stage-based movies."
Some, like the newly expanded Film Studio Gatteo, have seen the light and invested in soundproof, heated facilities with construction, offices, rehearsal and decent dining facilities on the lot. Although Gatteo is currently handling mainly domestic productions, they've positioned themselves well as one of the more service-oriented options for indie productions, more and more of which find Prague still offers value.
And even if they're not in on the action themselves with a blockbuster project like Bond, if the city can handle all comers of this size, it helps all studios, says Gatteo's Monika Charvatová. "It's publicity, and it's great having a film like that shot in Prague," she says. "It's great for everybody. We're all in the same boat."
Another reason to make the city as welcoming as possible to the big fish is that, as producer John Schofield of Doom has pointed out, "cheap" is no longer a word much-applied to Prague.
Putting more facilities online is the easiest way to go about that â and just as important to international producers as money issues, says Ludmila Claussová of the Czech Film Commission. "If we want to compete, we need this," she says. "I think it's critical."
Even the Barrandov board can see that now, it seems. "There is great interest abroad in the studios and their expansion will increase our ability to attract more foreign producers," says board chairman Tomáš Chrenek, adding that Barrandov has even managed to cut through Prague's notorious City Hall red tape: "The studio already holds a valid construction permit."
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