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Filming of Hollywood action thriller Empire City will start in Melbourne this month, after producers looked at locations around the world and landed on the Victorian capital.
Gerard Butler (pictured in Last Seen Alive) stars in Empire City, which will be filmed in Melbourne this month. Credit:
Despite the trams and gum trees, Melbourne can transform into other places easily, according to location scouts. Empire City is set in New York, so this time Melbourne will morph into the Big Apple onscreen.
The film stars Gerard Butler and is billed as a contemporary kidnap film in the vein of Die Hard.
The plot involves a hostage crisis inside a landmark New York building, requiring firefighter Rhett – played by Butler, known for Plane, Den of Thieves and the Has Fallen trilogy – and his squad to navigate their way through the building to rescue the captives. Also on hand is his police officer wife, Dani, played by Hayley Atwell of the last two Mission: Impossible films and the Captain America franchise.
MadRiver Pictures chief executive and producer Marc Butan says many locations around the world were in contention for the shoot. Earlier this year, he and director Michael Matthews visited a few different places to assess which was the best “creatively, financially and resource-wise”.
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“We really just landed on [local producer] Paul Currie and his team here – I’d met Paul a couple of years back – and the facilities here, the people including acting talent, the depth of the local crew,” he says. “What you need is the urban streets … the set dressing, the ability to build here, to hire most of the crew locally. It ticked all the boxes that we were looking for.”
One of those boxes is the government subsidies on offer, namely the Victorian Screen Rebate through VicScreen.
The figure is commercial-in-confidence, but the incentive is given as a percentage of a production’s total spend in the state. The film will also receive support via the federal government’s location offset.
Those financial incentives are significant, Butan says, adding there’s a lot of competition around the world for movies, particularly in English-speaking countries such as the UK. He had also considered several cities in Australia.
Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning - Part One.
Victorian Minister for Creative Industries Colin Brooks says the production will create hundreds of jobs and provide a major boost for the state’s screen industry.
“Victoria has the skills, talent and infrastructure to attract and bring to life major screen productions. Projects like Empire City engage local businesses, create local screen industry jobs, and fuel our economy.”
The production will create 350 jobs for the crew and 860 roles for the cast, casuals and extras, as well as engaging 600 local businesses, according to the minister, who says it will inject more than $35 million into the Victorian economy.
Currie, known for Hacksaw Ridge and the Robbie Williams film Better Man, says Victoria’s artists, technicians and facilities are second to none. “Together, we’re crafting a film that pushes the boundaries of commercial storytelling that hopefully connects with audiences everywhere,” he says.
The production will be filmed at locations across Melbourne, as well as at Docklands Studios.
Butler also starred in How to Train Your Dragon, which featured the work of Melbourne animation and visual effects studio Framestore. According to Brooks’ office, How To Train Your Dragon injected more than $10.5 million into the Victorian economy and generated 115 jobs in animation and visual effects.
Empire City is the latest international movie to film in Victoria, following the horror film Insidious 6, psychological drama The Dispatcher, football biopic The Untitled John Tuggle Project, World War II thriller Play Dead and Liam Neeson action feature The Mongoose.
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