Property developer Hackman Capital Partners — owner of L.A.’s Culver Studios and New York’s Silvercup Studios — unveiled the opening of London’s largest film and TV production complex.
Eastbrook Studios is a 21.5-acre campus with 12 purpose-built soundstages ranging from 16,000 square feet to 32,000 square feet in size. The launch of the film complex follows the UK government introducing a 40 percent corporate tax rates relief for film and TV studio facilities until 2034, and a new independent film incentive of 40 percent.
That and generous tax credits and a major pool of talent has helped make the UK a key production hub for Hollywood studios and streamers looking to make movie tentpoles and high-end TV.
Former Netflix exec and Eastbrook Studios’ managing director Brantley Bissett said of the complex: “Our modern and technologically advanced stages have the flexibility to welcome productions of every scale and type. This new creative hub, right here in London, is among the world’s finest. We’re extremely proud to be delivering world-class infrastructure to both domestic and international production.”
At the same time, in the UK and elsewhere, a reduction in film and TV content production budgets for the major studios and streamers after the 2023 Hollywood strikes, combined with rising construction costs in major cities worldwide, has led to a slower pace to open unfinished or new film studios on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hackman Capital in 2020 first won a contested bidding process to earn the contract to build on the 21-acre site in the East London town of Dagenham, as it promised to invest over $420 million into the property to be named Eastbrook Studios.
The completed film studio will be operated by an affiliate of Hackman Capital Partners, The MBS Group. Eastbrook Studios is one of 19 production campuses with 145 existing soundstages that Hackman Capital and The MBS Group run across North America, the UK and Ireland.
