While South African producers and regional film offices actively promote the country as a viable and cost-effective location for foreign film, television and commercial productions, hollywoodreporter.com reports that the US economy has missed out on an estimated $23b in economic benefits from lost feature film productions since 2000.
According to the Centre for Entertainment Industry Data And Research (CEIDR), since 1998 spending on US-based theatrical film productions declined 14% to $3.4b in 2005, even as worldwide production dollars rose 30% to $7.2b over the same period.
From 1998-2005, feature film production grew 179% to $1.2b in Canada, 66% to $809m in the UK and Ireland, 531% to $717m in Australia/New Zealand and 927% to $308m in Eastern Europe. California-based film and TV production rose 6% to $2.1b from 1998-2005, but the number of individual productions dropped 26%.
