After the 2023 Hollywood writers and actors strikes and the budget crunch that followed, the industry shock that was felt throughout Los Angeles extended all the way to Canada — specifically Ontario and British Columbia — where the usual deluge of location shoots slowed to a trickle. The strikes triggered a 26 percent downturn in production spending in 2024 compared with 2023, leaving local soundstages dark and production crews idle.
Hopes for a quick recovery surged once the labor action was settled in late 2023 and Hollywood got back to work. As L.A. continues struggling to bounce back, the locations business in Canada is booming again, signaling a speedy rebound that few predicted.
“Despite all the uncertainty, it does seem to be ticking along very well at the moment,” says Karen Thorne-Stone, president and CEO of Ontario Creates, which markets the province to foreign producers. “Production levels are looking good for us. The rebound has been strong. We’re feeling hopeful.”
The brutal pragmatism that is sending U.S. production north is fueled by some very generous tax breaks and a Canadian dollar that continues to drop in value compared with the American greenback, increasing savings for U.S. producers (and if President Donald Trump goes through with his proposed tariffs, the Canadian dollar could plummet even further, resulting in even more savings).
Insiders say Los Angeles’ wildfires are unlikely to have any immediate impact on Canadian location shoots, even as the disaster essentially shut down production in Hollywood for nearly two weeks.
“What’s happening in L.A. is tragic, and we’re all watching with broken hearts and very much hoping that it won’t have a long-term impact on the industry,” says Thorne-Stone. “I don’t think we’ve seen any direct impact from that situation on our production levels at this point. The scouting and the production was happening before the fires.”
For the time being, Canada’s locations sector is focusing on its own recovery post-strikes, with several provinces beginning to emerge from the shadow of Ontario, where most high-profile shows and movies set up shop thanks to the extensive infrastructure and crews in Toronto.
Manitoba, for instance, has seen significant activity. Marc Provissiero, a co-founder at Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment, has made three movies in Manitoba in recent years with Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk: the 2021 indie Nobody — which became a surprise box office hit for Universal Pictures, collecting more than $57 million worldwide — the sequel Nobody 2 and the thriller Normal.
Asked about the experience of shooting with Manitoba crews, Provissiero is reluctant to say how he truly feels.
“I don’t want to answer, honestly — then everyone will start going there,” Provissiero says. “They’re fantastic. We love them.”
Provissiero recalls his producing partner, Braden Aftergood, first pitching him on Winnipeg and its possible Middle America, Rust Belt look for Nobody, in which Odenkirk starred as a seemingly humdrum family man with a secret past as a professional assassin.
“[Winnipeg] wasn’t on anyone’s radar,” says Provissiero. “Once we had location photos and images, we saw that it could mimic a steel town in Ohio or Pennsylvania. So it worked for us.”
Adds Lynne Skromeda, CEO and film commissioner at Manitoba Film and Music: “We’re seeing the momentum start up again. We’re definitely getting inquiries from across Canada as well as the U.S. People are really paying attention to what’s happening in Manitoba.”
Provissiero no doubt benefited from Manitoba’s 45 percent film tax credit (65 percent with bonuses). Canadian tax credits and subsidies remain key drivers of production for local indie filmmakers and studios. But subsidies and incentives can only do so much in the face of industry contraction. Canada’s animation sector, for instance, hit a 10-year high in 2023, only to plunge by 55 percent in 2024 thanks to the major streamers pulling back on kids series acquisitions. Despite the industry headwinds, Toronto continues to be a bustling hub for Canadian animation, producing hits like Spin Master Entertainment’s kids series Unicorn Academy, which was just renewed for a second season on Netflix.
Elsewhere, Newfoundland and Labrador’s 40 percent tax credit and unique locations have encouraged a recent spike in location shoots for series like the family police drama Hudson & Rex for UPtv and The CW’s Son of a Critch. Apple TV+’s Severance also shot an episode for its second season at locations along the Bonavista Peninsula, and Amazon’s Reacher — which primarily has been shot in Ontario — set down over the summer in St. John’s, Newfoundland, which doubled as nearby Portland, Maine.
“Word is getting around that Newfoundland is an exciting location where you can do a lot of great work,” says Laura Churchill, CEO of PictureNL and film commissioner of Newfoundland and Labrador, who adds that her Atlantic Coast province is a five-hour flight from the U.K.
British Columbia, long a major studio and streamer production hub given its proximity to Los Angeles, also is experiencing an uptick in calls and queries. “We’ve had a lot of phone calls and requests for location packages and scouting, both in December and into January. Our team has been very busy,” says B.C. film commissioner Marnie Gee.
To meet that demand, Bridge Studios, owners of the first dedicated studio facility in Vancouver, is set to open 20 new soundstages on 18 acres at its Lake City Studios facility this summer. The studio has been built with green specifications in mind and boasts that it is 100 percent fossil fuel-free.
Indeed, the toll that film and TV shoots can take on the environment is an ongoing challenge for the Canadian locations sector, with the Los Angeles fires specifically resonating with the industry in B.C. The westernmost Canadian province, with its vast forest lands and rivers, has had its own experience with out-of-control wildfires, which have leveled entire rural communities.
“Our hearts go out to California,” says Prem Gill, CEO of Creative B.C., which markets the province to Hollywood. “We reached out to the California Film Commission. Our industry here in British Columbia is really trying to see if there’s anything we can do. Obviously, it’s devastating for our colleagues in California.”
Gill adds that the dangers posed by climate change are taken seriously by the production and locations crews in the province. “It’s very real, and we’ve certainly had communities here in B.C. that have been impacted over the years,” she says.
She points to efforts by the local film industry to promote environmental sustainability by, for example, ditching diesel generators on film sets and locations and tapping into an expanding network of clean-energy electricity kiosks.
In Ontario, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions include giving filmmakers access to clean electrical grid power at locations across the province and using more portable electric generators instead of diesel.
The strong Ontario pipeline for major studio series is underlined by Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale having just wrapped its final-season shoot in Toronto and much of the series’ creative and cast going directly on to the sequel, Testaments, which is set to shoot in Toronto from March to August.
But despite Canada’s surprisingly rapid recovery after the downturn of the strikes, insiders acknowledge that challenges remain. The hypercompetitive locations business has become even more crowded, with countries all over the planet boosting incentives and tax breaks to lure lucrative Hollywood productions to their shores.
The U.K. and Eastern Europe offer particularly stiff competition, but Canadian industry players feel confident that the major studios and streamers will continue to choose the highly developed locations industry of Canada in the long run.
Says Victoria Harding, executive director of the Directors Guild of Canada, Ontario: “With the infrastructure we have here — both human and physical — eventually we will prevail.”
This story appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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