Pinewood ready to go into partnership with Canadian Filmport Studios

11-Dec-2008 • Bond News

Filmport, Toronto's giant but underused film stage, is about to get a new partner â the big British film company Pinewood Studios.

Sources told the Star yesterday a group including Pinewood, ROI Capital and Castlepoint Realty Partners is buying 60 per cent of Filmport - reports The Star.

However, the deal is not firm yet.

No one involved in the deal was talking yesterday, but a late addition to the agenda of today's city council meeting is a confidential report on proposed amendments to Filmport's lease with the Toronto Economic Development Corp., or Tedco.

Tedco is owned by the city. It holds the land on which Filmport sits, and has leased it to Filmport for 99 years.

A source said the lease amendments are needed because Pinewood has struck a deal to buy a minority interest in Filmport.

That should be good news for Filmport, whose huge sound stage in the Portlands has been sitting idle since it opened this summer.

Pinewood produces blockbuster movies. Recent films include the newest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, The Bourne Ultimatum and Brideshead Revisited.

Pinewood in fact had bid in 2004 to build what is now the Filmport studio, but lost out to a competing bid. Pinewood and Castlepoint Group then bought a site at Bloor St. W. and Lansdowne Ave. to build their own studio.

Alfredo Romano, a principal at Castlepoint, would not comment yesterday.

However, if the deal goes through, the west end Toronto studio that was supposed to be slated for Pinewood would likely not proceed, says a source.

If Pinewood does proceed with a partnership in Filmport and brings production business to Toronto, it would be good news for an industry that has been hit hard in recent years.

Spending on movie, television, commercials and music videos in Toronto peaked at $1.3 billion in 2000, but last year had declined to $755.8 million, according to the city's film and television office.

The industry was also buffeted earlier this year when the Canadian dollar soared in value, increasing the cost of filming in Canada for U.S. companies.