The weather was cool, but the summer box office was hot this year for Hollywood films shot in Canada.

On the strength of blockbusters such as I, Robot and The Day After Tomorrow, service features made US$584 million for Hollywood this summer – up significantly from US$442 million last summer, and almost double the US$307 million of 2002. (All figures include Canadian and U.S. receipts, compiled by Playback from Nielsen EDI and Variety.)

There were eight wide- or saturation-release features out between May and August that shot significant footage north of the border: The Day After Tomorrow and The Terminal, filmed in Montreal; New York Minute and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, shot in Toronto; and The Chronicles of Riddick, White Chicks, Catwoman and I, Robot, from B.C.

The strong showing should boost the north’s reputation for hosting high-budget, tentpole releases, the West Coast in particular. ‘It’s a demonstration of what we can do,’ says B.C. film commissioner Susan Croome, and shows Hollywood decision-makers that the service industry ‘can handle high-quality projects.’

The productions appear to have gone smoothly, which also scores points. ‘When a production has a good time, the producers are pleased and they’re more likely to steer in that direction again,’ says Donna Zuchlinski, acting manager of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

The big-budget shoots contributed to a record high production spend in B.C. last year, where foreign spending topped $1.2 billion, reversing a downward slump that had dogged the province since 2000. The spend was down 11% to $874.1 million in Ontario last year, however, due in part to SARS, and stats were not available at press time for Montreal.

Canada also contributed two limited releases: the Toronto-shot indie A Home at the End of the World, with Colin Farrell, and the religious satire Saved! from Vancouver and Surrey, B.C., which brought in a combined box office of US$9.3 million. Lumped in with the major releases, the Canadian-shot box office for this summer climbs to just shy of US$600 million. Many of this summer’s pictures also had FX and post done in Canada, including extensive work by alphacine and Toybox Vancouver on I, Robot and Riddick.

The Day After Tomorrow and I, Robot are also among the summer’s top-10-grossing films, holding at numbers four and seven, respectively, as of mid-August. The disaster flick and the Will Smith robots-gone-wild extravaganza were the service industry’s best work on screens this season – Robot debuted at number one on the North American charts, Tomorrow at number two behind the latest Shrek instalment, and both made short work of the US$100-million mark. The Terminal and White Chicks also debuted at number two, trailing Dodgeball and Fahrenheit 9/11, respectively.

The last two summers have not been as stellar. Seven films that came out in 2003 were made in Canada, but only one, B.C.’s X2, was a tentpole release and a bona fide smash – taking the number-one spot on its opening weekend and placing fifth overall for the summer at over US$200 million. With the possible exception of Freddy vs. Jason and its surprising US$75 million, there were no other standouts.

(Things would have been very different, however, if Terminator 3 had shot out west as originally planned and not in L.A. Its US$150-million gross would have put summer ’03 even with that of ’04.)

There were seven major releases in 2002, foremost of which were the Montreal-shot The Sum Of All Fears (US$118 million) and B.C.-shot Insomnia (US$67 million). Sum placed number 10 overall for the summer, Insomnia at 17.

By this time next year, however, the standing of service movies may drop again, thanks to increased competition among regions, and a possible production lull in Hollywood. Producer Don Carmody (Chicago, Gothika) thinks this summer’s successes will attract more fire from the anti-runaway lobby, noting ‘more big movies means more heat.’ He points to the many tax credits and incentives that have recently been passed by U.S. states – New York, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico – as evidence that Hollywood lobbyists are gaining political traction.

‘The very fact that the states are putting out these things says something,’ says Carmody. ‘America is usually very hands-off when it comes to subsidies.’

Anti-runaway sentiment also surfaced at the Democratic National Convention in July when Sum of All Fears star Ben Affleck, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, called runaway production ‘criminal’ and ‘probably the most important issue facing the state of California today.’

More stay-at-home shoots in the U.S. will likely mean stiffer competition between Canada and rival territories in Eastern Europe and Australia. Oz is ‘big, big, big’ thanks to its generous 25% tax credit and established infrastructure, says Carmody, and is about to pass a free-trade pact with the U.S., although it is unclear how this might affect service shoots. ‘If it wasn’t so far away it’d be perfect.’

Although costs are on the rise in Prague, other European regions such as Slovakia and Romania are still very inexpensive. The same cannot be said of Canada, where the loonie continues to trade high against the U.S. dollar at around $0.70.

Many of the 19 major releases tentatively skedded for release next summer are just now getting underway, two of which are set for the West Coast. Herbie: Fully Loaded, a revival of the old Disney franchise, will be shot partly in Vancouver alongside Fantastic Four, yet another superhero smash ’em up from the pages of Marvel Comics.

Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott’s big picture about the Crusades, is underway in Morocco and the final Star Wars movie has been camped out in Australia and Tunisia since last year. The U.K. is currently hosting The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and portions of Batman Begins. Others, including Bewitched, The Pink Panther and XXX: State of the Union, are based in the U.S.

Hollywood also has to renegotiate its contracts with the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America, due to expire in 2005, and with the Writers Guild of America, which saw its contract run out in May. Some fear that labor trouble could disrupt production, and note that a chill effect seems to have already hit Hollywood.

‘How many I, Robots or Riddicks or Paychecks are being made right now?’ asks Croome. ‘I don’t think they’re doing as much work this year.’