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Several decades ago, Luc Besson had a dream: to build a world-standard studio complex in Paris which could rival the U.K.'s Pinewood. He wanted to attract iconic international shoots and stop big Hollywood movies from filming all locations in France and then moving to London or back to the U.S. to shoot interiors.
Besson opened La Cité du Cinéma in 2012, housing the 102,000 square foot Les Studios de Paris, the largest sound stage complex in the Paris area, boasting a stunning Cathedral style nave entrance.
On Friday, as part of Variety's Global Conversations Summit at Cannes, Brigitte Segal, head of Les Studios de Paris, and John Bernard, doyen of France's line-producers ("Inception,""Franklin," "The New Look," "Heads of State"), doubled down on how far Les Studios de Paris and France at large are near to Besson's dream, buoyed by indirect knock-on consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
When he started out in the business in France, no U.S. studios enquired about shooting studio work in France, Bernard recalled. The pandemic proved a game-changer. Line produced by Bernard, Apple TV+'s "The New Look" was originally going to shoot locations in Paris, then move to Budapest for studio work.
"COVID suddenly changed the way films had to be made. It changed the way you could move from country to country and have multiple hubs because you had to go through at least a week to ten days of quarantining your crew and your cast between each place," Bernard recalled. "Your production designer potentially could lose a week of his whole prep just because the amount of time he's traveling between Budapest and Paris."
So Apple TV+ settled to shoot "The New Look" in its entirety at Les Studios de Paris. "We proved not only in terms of the way we shot it but also in terms of the budgets which we put together that in actual fact, it was more efficient and it was cheaper just to stay in one place," said Bernard.
The biggest and newest purpose-built studios in France, boasting nine soundstages, workshops and a wood mill, camera rentals and sound companies, Les Studios de Paris had already hosted Pablo Larrain's "Jackie," starring Natalie Portman, Netflix hit "Emily in Paris" Seasons 1-3, and scenes from "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon." The Olympic Games proved, however, another turning point. The whole Cite du Cinéma was taken over for 10 months to house part the Olympic Village, its Cathedral nave for the restaurant, the Studios de Paris soundstages for training. At first, when the Olympic Committee explained their plans, Segal said that she was "pretty depressed."
But the 10-month hiatus allowed her to think through how she could take the studios to the next level, facilitating their consolidation as a one-hub, one-stop-shop for big international shoots.
"The Olympics made me think that the Studios need to become a spot where productions can just base their camp on our grounds, storing their trucks on a site with security, guard dogs, and go shoot on location night and day outside in Paris, coming back, getting equipment, and going out again," she said.
To that end, Segal is creating a 30,000 square foot base camp area able to accommodate three large productions at once, Segal said. The Olympics added a hotel five minutes from the Studios. Segal plans a multi-story parking facility and pre-assembly workshops.
France's Tax Rebate on International Productions already offers a robust 30% baseline return on eligible expenses incurred in France. A VFX spend of over €2 million ($2.2 million) triggers an extra 10% rebate on not only VFX but all expenditure.
"If there's any production of any size, you're definitely going to get the 10% bonus through a VFX $2.2 million minimum spend. So suddenly you're up to 40% on all of your expenditure," Bernard said at the Summit.
U.S. crew costs do not count towards the rebate, however - a large incentive to crew up in France, he noted. A single hub model for France will only work if the quality of crew justices justifies a big shoot filming just in France. That's certainly the case, Segal and Bernard argued.
"It's a key element about going into a studio. You've got to be able to build a set which looks fantastic. You've got to have the patina, painters and sculptors creating in an efficient and cost cost effective way," said Bernard.