Major MPA member company European film shoots in 2021-2024 include Sony’s The Equalizer 3 (Italy) and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (Greece); NBCUniversal’s TAR (Germany); Searchlight’s Poor Things (Hungary), Chevalier (Czech Republic) and O’dessa (Croatia); 20th Century’s Hell Raiser (Serbia), A Haunting in Venice (Italy), Alien (Hungary) and The First Omen (Italy); Netflix’s All Quiet On the Western Front (Czech Republic), Wednesday (Romania, Ireland) and Stranger Things (Lithuania); Walt Disney Pictures’ Rise (Greece); Warner Bros. Discovery’s John Wick: Chapter 4 (Germany, France); and Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (Iceland), Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 (Italy, Norway), and Gladiator 2 (Malta).

MPA member companies spent an average of €619,000 per day on feature film shoots in Europe over the past five years. The average MPA member company film shooting in Europe employed 1,109 local workers, and spent an average €28.6 million, including €11.1 million in wages on location.

Disney EMEA has launched 48 original productions on the Disney+ platform with an investment of approximately $449m and created over 2,500 jobs in the creative industries, as of the end of December 2023.

Since establishing its Amsterdam EMEA HQ in 2015 Netflix has partnered with over 400 European production partners to bring compelling European stories to audiences in their home countries and beyond. Between 2018 and 2021, Netflix invested 4 billion euros into making great European films and series; from acclaimed films like Society of the Snow and All Quiet on the Western Front, series like Poland’s High Waters and Sweden’s Snabba Cash, comedies like Italy’s Rose Island, France’s En Place and more. These stories are created and shot across the region be it iconic capital cities (Lupin, La Casa De Papel), smaller towns and remote areas (Undercover, Stolen) or recreated historical settings (The Empress, Forgotten Love).

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) produces a range of content in Europe, from local original dramas, such as Spanish horror 30 Coins, which returned for a second season in 2023, and Polish crime drama series The Thaw, which will return for a second season in 2024, to global HBO dramas like The Regime starring Kate Winslet shot in Austria and premiering in 2024, to local language films including the French feature film Bernadette, and Hollywood blockbusters like Dune: Part Two, which was shot in Hungary.

Paramount and NBCUniversal’s SkyShowtime acquired exclusive European rights to 21 local series from Warner Bros. Discovery. Local Eastern European shows, which are branded as SkyShowtime originals, include The Winner, Warszawianka, and The Informant.

WBD’s production of the TV miniseries Irma Vep stimulated a total of 2,670 full time and part time jobs in France in 2021.

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Disney has announced 68 European original titles as of end of December 2023, including: six German titles including the Critic’s Choice-nominated drama The Interpreter of Silence, Sam – A Saxon and Farm Rebellion; twelve French titles including the BAFTA nominated Oussekine, Weekend Family, Lambert vs Lambert: Over His Dead Body and Everything is Fine; nine Italian titles including the Berlinale Series-award-winning and Critic’s Choice-nominated The Good Mothers, The Lions of Sicily, Italia’s Got Talent and Boris; eight Spanish titles including Our Only Chance, The Pope: Answers and 548 Days: Abducted Online and seventeen UK titles including the award-winning comedy series Extraordinary, Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, The Full Monty and Finding Michael.

2024 will mark 10 years of Netflix in Germany, France and Belgium, with Italy, Spain, Portugal following in 2025, celebrating a decade of creative partnerships and ambitious and popular creations. Today, Netflix in Germany brings a diverse, exciting slate like academy award winner All Quiet on the Western Front, the wildly popular series Dear Child, and fan favourite series The Empress, while France remains a bastion of creativity, from popular action films like AKA, to hit series like Lupin, and a new generation of talent in front and behind the camera. The popularity of European storytelling doesn’t stop there; as of 2023 Netflix’s top 10 non-English films to date, come from Europe like Italy’s My Name is Vendetta, Sweden’s Black Crab and Spanish thriller Nowhere, showing the variety of inspiring European stories.

Disney has commissioned two French original movies for Disney+ : The Squad and A Place to Fight For.

Paramount+ has launched in France as part of an agreement with Canal+ and in long-term partnership with Gaumont (the French studio behind Netflix’s Lupin and Narcos).iv v Under the partnership Gaumont will produce new content in association with Paramount’s international studio, VIS.

WBD’s Max streaming service, which will launch across Europe, including France, in 2024 has its first ever French Max Original Mythomaniac of Bataclan (working title) in post-production.

WBD’s Max Original, Julia, starring Sarah Lancashire was filmed on location in Paris.

WBD’s local language feature film Bernadette starring Catherine Deneuve and released in 2023 was produced in France. In 2023, WBD France released two other French movies The Midwife and Hawaï. In 2024, two French movies are on the line-up with the upcoming comedy Heureux Gagnant in March and the adaptation of the prized book And Their Children After Them.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s film The Nun 2 filmed in France in 2022, employing more than 170 local workers and generating direct economic benefits, including more than 3.3 million euros over 7 weeks of filming between hotel/accommodations, car rental, catering and the daily expenses of the staff.

FX’s series Atlanta filmed in France in 2021 with local production company Froggie Production assisting with the shoot. Some 150 French crew members worked alongside the show’s main crew from the US and UK, along with local extras.

Paramount+ launched in Germany with local projects slated like the Scottish-German crime series Chemistry of Death, the dramedy The Sheik from Swiss director Dani Levy (Go for Zucker!), Spotlight, and the thriller A Thin Line.

WBD’s discovery+ streaming service, which launched in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria in 2022, has a number of 2023 local originals, including include dramas Para – We are King, Two Sides of the Abyss and Boom Boom Bruno, and comedy German Genius.

WBD’s local slate of 2022 includes: More Beautiful 2022; Nominated for Best Picture at German Film Award, The Path (2022); Won Best Children’s Film at German Film Award, Cloud Under the Roof, The History of Mankind –slightly shortened, Over and Out, A Thousand Lines, Rheingold, Just Something Nice (Won Best Actress National at Bambi Awards), Oskar’s dress (2022; Won Film National at Bambi Awards).

Multiple WBD local German productions were shot, produced, and released in 2023, employing local workers and generating direct economic benefits, for local hotels/accommodations, car rentals, catering and more. These productions include When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before, which was included in this year’s Berlin Film Festival and the comedy A Feast for Life.

From 2024 and onwards, WBD will start co-producing and shooting more films in Germany, such as Amrum.

WBD’s production of the second season of the HBO TV series The White Lotus contributed over €38 million to Italy’s GDP in 2022, supporting over 700 local businesses. The season stimulated a total of 1,900 full- time and part-time jobs across Italy in 2022. For every 100 people the production directly employed, its expenditure stimulated another 27 jobs across the country.

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NBCUniversal filmed the Diane Keaton and Jane Fonda-starring feature film Book Club: The Next Chapter in locations across Italy, in and around Rome (including at Cinecittà Studios), Venice, and Tuscany.

NBCUniversal’s Fast X filmed in Portugal and Italy (Rome and Turin) in 2022. The production in Turin employed more than 100 local professionals and generated about 3.8 million euros in local spending, coming mainly from the cost of location rental, hotels, catering, restaurants, technical expenses, and other costs. In Portugal, the film was a “massive economic investment in the country”, covering “various sectors, carpentry, construction, machinery, wardrobe, [and] small businesses”.

Sony’s Production of The Equalizer 3 generated and estimated 18 to 19 million euros for the Amalfi Coast during the 2022 filming.

Member companies’ Spanish local film productions that released in 2023 include: Los Buenos modales (WB), Asedio (Sony), Me Contro Te Il Film – Missione Giungla (WB), and Mi soledad tiene alas (WB).

Netflix’s European production hub in Tres Cantos offers Spanish and European talent the best production and post production facilities the entertainment industry has at their fingertips. Housing 10 state of the art production stages and cutting edge post production, many of Netflix’s most popular series and films, including Money Heist, Élite, BERLÍN, or Society of Snow, and UK series KAOS, are shot and edited at some stage in Tres Cantos. Netflix has partnered with over 40 production partners in Spain since 2015, creating over 10,000 jobs and filming in every region in the country including Galicia, Andalucía, Cataluña and beyond.

WBD’s Spanish language productions released in 2023 include animation Poor Devil, comedies Headless Chickens and I Don’t Like Driving, and horror series 30 Coins S2. Upcoming thriller When Nobody Sees Us is currently in production.

WBD Spanish local film productions that released in 2023 include: Good Manners, Me Against You The Film – Jungle Mission, Me Against You – Holidays in Transylvania, and My Loneliness Has Wings and Mummies.

Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon season one shot in both Spain and Portugal.

Focus Features and NBCUniversal’s Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City filmed in the Madrid town of Chinchón, generating 6 million euros for Chinchon and Colmenar de Oreja, an economic impact of 3 million euros in each of these municipalities, including accommodation, food, extras, catering and more, as well as employing 500 locals.  The spending benefited local business such as Justo’s restaurant and a craft shot on Calle de las Mulillas.

NBCUniversal’s series Vampire Academy invested around 400,000 euros during its shoot in San Sebastian (Spain) and according to the Navarre Film Commission also employed more than 400 Spanish crew members, working with 249 local companies and investing around 10 million euros in that region during the filming. Additionally, Universal Television also launched a Bootcamp training program organized by the Navarre Employment office. This job training program provided an opportunity for locals to gain skills, knowledge and understanding of a TV production.

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Disney has commissioned a movie called Fly the Coop from Netherlands.

WBD has been producing in the region for many years, including recent hits such as #BringBackAlice and Romanian political thriller Spy/Master. Documentaries include A Happy Man (Slovakia) and My Muslim Husband (Romania).

In Poland alone, WBD has invested a total of nearly PLN 0.5 billion in local production over the past 3 years and is steadily expanding this market.

WBD Poland is committed to producing 4-6 series, an average of 1-2 films (co-production not included) as well as 2-3 documentary titles per year. In 2023 alone, 18 WBD produced, coproduced and/or distributed films have hit Polish theaters.

Warner Bros. Discovery in Poland has developed state-of-the-art technology facilities, and for the past five years, its strategic focus has been feature film production. The company owns a production hub in Sękocin, and as advancements in technology revolutionize filmmaking techniques and shape the cinematic landscape, the company heavily invests in virtual production. Its XR installation with LED technology is the largest in Europe. The technology is widely used for an array of formats, from daytime series such as On Wspólna Street, to premium originals such as Klara to film productions such as AA Team.

Hungary remains a destination for international productions. In 2022, these included WBD’s Dune: Part Two by Denis Villeneuve, and the Netflix miniseries All the Light We Cannot See.

Filming on Showtime’s Halo series took place at Korda Studios in Hungary with local production services company MidAtlantic working on the series. More than $41.3 million was spent in Hungary on the first season of the show, the second highest amount that year.

Sony Pictures’ Gran Turismo shot in Hungary and Austria in 2022. Reports show that the film employed hundreds of extras from the region of Spielberg in Austria.

The city of Vilnius, Lithuania has recently been home to series from both Netflix (Stranger Things) and WBD’s HBO (Chernobyl, Catherine the Great).

The Universal Television/CBS Studios series FBI International filmed for six days in coastal Croatia, hiring over 130 extras, with a crew of over 280 people.

Filming of both the first and second seasons of Sony Pictures production The Wheel of Time took place in Prague, Czech Republic, working alongside local production company Partnership Pictures. Local expenditure on the show’s first season were estimated to be CZK 2 billion. Reports show that the show’s second season employed more than 500 local Czech crew members. As well as filming in studios, the production used several Czech locations for exterior scenes.

Disney is commissioning an adaptation of Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s murder mystery novel To Cook a Bear as its first Nordic original for Disney+.

Recent local original productions from WBD in the region include Beforeigners season 2 and Kamikaze. Documentary First Five went behind the scenes following Finland’s all-female cabinet led by Sanna Marin.

WBD’s HBO filmed on location in Norway for the fourth and final season of Succession.

WBD’s 2024 HBO Original True Detective: Night Country, starring Jodie Foster, shot in Iceland.

Greece hosted Disney+’s Giannis Antetokounmpo biopic Rise as well as Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Disney is spending $49M on the new Star Wars series The Acolyte’s pre-production, shooting in Madeira, Portugal.

NBCUniversal’s The Last Voyage Of The Demeter filmed in Germany and Malta, injecting $18 million into the local economy in Malta, and employing nearly 1,000 cast, crew and extras in the five-months of work in Malta. Malta’s crew base has grown from 400 registered local production workers in 2018 to more than 1,500 today.

Universal Pictures’ Jurassic World: Dominion contributed millions of euros into the local Malta economy along with employing more than 1,300 crew and extras.

The 5-part miniseries produced by Sabine de Mardt for Gaumont GmbH for Disney+ is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by author and showrunner Annette Hess and tells the story of a young interpreter who is confronted with the shocking truth of the Holocaust during her work at the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt in 1963.

Across EMEA, since 2019, Disney has launched 48 Disney+ Original Productions and filmed 14 movies outside of the UK with an investment of over $650m and created over 3,000 jobs in the creative industries.

Disney is spending $49M on the new Star Wars series The Acolyte’s pre-production, shooting in Madeira, Portugal

Disney had three motion pictures filmed in Ireland – 20th Century Studios’ The Last Duel, Searchlight’s The Banshees of Inisherin, and Disney’s Disenchanted.

Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi was filmed in County Donegal, while Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens was filmed on Skellig Michael. The latter was worth an estimated €40 million in advertising to Ireland, according to the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation

Disney shot several movies in Italy including Indiana Jones, The Little Mermaid, Rosaline and The King’s Man.

The production of TV series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin contributed over €31 million to Germany’s GDP (“Bruttoinlandsprodukt”) according to an economic impact study by Oxford Economics, commissioned by the MPA in cooperation with NBCUniversal and Studio Babelsberg. The production also created 700 local jobs (full-time and part-time) and supported more than 650 local businesses across all of Germany, especially in the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

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