Only recently the Toronto service sector was near succumbing to doom and gloom. After a record year of foreign production spending in 2001/02, it has for the most part been a downhill slide. SARS. The rising loonie. More competition.

Now, however, there is fresh hope, all to do with the announcement that the U.K.’s Pinewood Studios Group – the historic facilities of which have housed the likes of The Third Man, James Bond and The Da Vinci Code – is coming to town to set up a satellite facility and a foothold in the North American market.

Toronto currently does not have any so-called megastudios, but soon, if all goes according to plan, it will have two. Toronto Film Studios’ FilmPort complex on the city’s waterfront – which beat out Pinewood and others in a 2004 bidding war – is underway, with a projected opening date of March 2008. And Pinewood is back, looking to build in Toronto’s west end, in a deal confirmed to Playback by real-estate developer Alfredo Romano, the U.K. studio’s local partner. Of course, no ground has been broken yet, but all signs are go.

Elsewhere in town, Showline Harbourside Studios remains open, its operators not yet evicted, as has happened to rival Cinespace Film Studios, which shut down its flagship Marine Terminal 28 building for the city’s waterfront revitalization project. But Cinespace also remains a player, and is in ongoing development on an east-end facility formerly leased by TFS.

So, the situation in which Toronto finds itself this summer – in which one blockbuster shoot (Marvel Studios’ Hulk) is crowding a large percentage of the city’s soundstage space – will likely not be repeated in the future. Hey, great that Toronto got the big green guy, but its studio demands are keeping other big Hollywood productions away, which is not so great for local crews and service providers.

Now, with location shooting ever more competitive throughout North America and around the world, the question becomes: can Toronto attract enough business to keep all these new stages humming?

Chances, likely, are yes. While Pinewood isn’t talking, one can only conclude that it wouldn’t put up 50% of this $35-million venture – one it has been pursuing for years – unless it was very confident there would be enough work to make it viable. Quite possibly, it will send some productions over The Pond. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before we see 007 giving the bartender directions at Casino Rama?

Pinewood is part-owned by directors Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, who could bring projects of their own. And why would they do that? Well, for the simple reasons that many production services in Toronto cost a mere fraction of what they do in London, and some producers who have worked in both countries prefer the Canadian crews.

Having two new studios is also good for producers in that it will keep prices in the city competitive. By comparison, in Montreal – which today does far better than Toronto in luring blockbuster shoots – the only game in town is La Cité du Cinéma, and so producers have less leverage in negotiating costs.

Montreal has been an attractive choice for producers of films such as The Day After Tomorrow and The Aviator because its exteriors can stand in for urban U.S. centers, and it can also provide sufficient purpose-built studio space for interiors. But Toronto can do an even better job of standing in for the likes of Chicago, New York or Boston, and it will soon have the studios as well. And it is 500 kilometers closer to Los Angeles.

La Cité will have to step up and offer producers a more desirable package. This is especially true given a recent push to get a new studio facility off the ground in nearby Quebec City.

Meanwhile, B.C. studios, which did more than twice as much volume as their Ontario counterparts last year, don’t have as much to fear. Vancouver may lose a project or two to a rejuvenated Toronto, but it is closest to L.A. and in the same time zone, it currently houses a number of ongoing TV series, and it offers distinctive exterior possibilities with its mountains, ocean and forests.

Nonetheless, in Toronto, where union contracts recently wrapped up, and given its talent pool, crews, the fact that city officials are waiving and discounting fees to productions, its desirable locations and now two major new studios potentially on the way, the city is proclaiming to the film world that it is a major player once again.