Members of the Ontario Film and Television Studio Owners Association have been expressing outrage at a purported deal between the Toronto Economic Development Corporation and Alliance Atlantis Communications to create a major film studio complex in Toronto’s port lands.

‘This deal has been in the works for almost a year,’ says Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios and an oftsoa member. ‘During this same period, members of our organization were told that no lands were available for long-term deals.’

Despite allegations that aac and tedco have been in talks about a development deal on the 1.5-million-square-foot studio, Judson Martin, aac’s executive vp and cfo, says the media giant has absolutely no definitive involvement in such a deal.

‘We’ve had discussions with tedco as a potential tenant, but not as a developer or owner….They have asked nothing of us and we have asked nothing of them.’

And while the mayor’s office was unavailable for comment, tedco president Allan Andrews admits to discussions about the project, and adds that none of the complaining studio owners had ever approached him about building in the port lands.

The question, however, remains: Does Toronto need a mega-studio facility?

According to a February study released by the Ontario Film Development Corporation, the lack of available soundstage space is ‘perhaps the most frequently stated concern by all stakeholders….Toronto has much difficulty in serving complex, large-scale, feature productions in the community. Much of this difficulty can be traced to the absence of a single, self-contained, studio complex, which could support an entire [us$58 million] production on site.’

At an oftsoa press conference, Nov. 9, Ferguson argued the opposite.

‘Putting our collective eggs in one ‘mega’ basket is not the answer,’ he said. ‘The key to growing our local film industry is through investment and expansion of our existing studio facilities….Reaching for the ‘blockbuster’ brass ring is admirable, but Mega-Studio’s massive size and 80-foot ceilings are too specialized, and too expensive for most film productions.’

Vancouver and Montreal, which house mega-studios, have had a higher rate of industry growth over the past five years than Toronto.

The ofdc report outlines the need for a facility with four soundstages: three 15,000-square-feet stages with 40-foot ceilings, and one main 40,000-square-foot stage with 80-foot ceilings. Without such a facility, the report says high-budget foreign films are more likely to gravitate toward Canada’s other production centres.

The Fox production, X-Men, with a budget of nearly us$70 million, shot in Toronto but had a problem cobbling together enough stage space to accommodate the production. The film was split among three different facilities and had to work in soundstages converted from old buildings/warehouses.

The report also states that in fiscal 1999 alone, three projects (Mission to Mars, Battlefield Earth and Pluto Nash) with estimated combined production budgets of us$220 million, were lost to other Canadian centres that could provide adequate soundstage space. *