Proposal to build a new film and TV studio in Greater Sudbury

Major film studio proposed for Sudbury Cinefest executive director Tammy Frick joins Brendan Connor to talk about a proposed $30M film studio for Greater Sudbury.

Sudbury — Film, TV and music production group Cultural Industries Ontario North (CION) is looking to build a new studio in Greater Sudbury.

"Since 2013, there have been upwards of 110 film and television projects shot with a total production spend of over $300 million in Greater Sudbury," said Tammy Frick, associate executive director of CION and long-time executive director of Cinefest Sudbury. "A purpose-built film studio is the next logical step in advancing the growth of the production industry in northern Ontario."

The first phase of the development calls for a 116,000 sq. ft. facility with three sound stages, offices, wardrobe, mill, paint, and other spaces. The sound stages will be 18,000-20,000 sq. ft. each with ceiling heights of 35-feet.

The project is being called Freshwater Production Studios and CION is currently looking for a partner to help establish the new studio. Expressions of Interest are being accepted until May 6.

Because of the heavy demand for digital content, there is a great need for more studio space and Freshwater Production Studios (FPS) believes it can attract larger-scale project with a new facility.

"In Ontario, studios have been operating at full capacity since 2016 and hundreds of millions of production dollars have been turned away due to lack of available studio infrastructure," Freshwater said in a news release Wednesday morning. "FPS will immediately alleviate unmet demand for studio space that currently exists in Ontario and around the world."

The film and television industry in northern Ontario generated $194 million in goods and services and the equivalent of more than 3,000 full-time jobs in Greater Sudbury and North Bay between 2012 and 2016.

"The growth of production volumes and demand for studio space across Ontario continues to be strong," said Justin Cutler, Ontario film commissioner at Ontario Creates. "This timely development will help attract additional production to Ontario and will drive high-value job creation and economic impact in Sudbury and throughout northern Ontario."

Over the last several years many acclaimed productions have been made in northern Ontario, including Letterkenny, Netflix's Bad Blood, and the newest film in the Resident Evil franchise, Welcome to Raccoon City.

The CION websites currently lists two film studios in northern Ontario: