Ben Stiller didn’t order Twentieth Century Fox’s A Night at the Museum to relocate from Montreal to Vancouver. Special effects were to blame.

Fox spokesman David Lux says producers of the effects-heavy comedy – in which a museum security guard, played by Stiller, awakens a curse that brings to life animals and insects on display – chose to be near Vancouver post houses that have serviced other Fox movies, notably the second and third X-Men movies.

‘It’s business,’ says Lux.

The US$100-million film recently moved west despite having begun stage construction in Montreal, a stinging loss for the city. It will shoot early next year.

Michel Trudel, owner of Mel’s Cité du Cinéma, confirmed that A Night at the Museum left his studio complex because of special effects, and not because Stiller dislikes Montreal, as the local press had claimed.

‘Ben Stiller loves Montreal,’ he says, adding that the star recently called to apologize for any adverse publicity caused by the location change.

Fox is expected to recover the cost of breaking down the set and reassembling it in Vancouver by tapping the Digital Animation and Visual Effects tax credit offered by B.C. Fox stood to lose the 15% post-production cut if it had kept principal shooting in Quebec, while going to Vancouver for visual effects work.

Being nearer to Los Angeles may help too, if – as in the case of the X-Men franchise – additional American companies are hired to handle effects work. It is not known which Canadian effects houses will work on Museum.

Also in Vancouver’s corner is the fact that Museum director Shawn Levy knows the city after helming Fox’s Cheaper by the Dozen there in 2002.

So why all the breast-beating in Montreal? As Trudel tells it, one of the film’s producers inadvertently told local crews prepping A Night at the Museum that the project was going west because Stiller had taken the lead.

The prospect of as many as 300 production jobs and as much as $15 million in wages migrating to Vancouver prompted a call to Le Journal de Montréal columnist Agnes Gaudet, who pinned the blame on Stiller in a Nov. 3 column, says Trudel.

The ensuing press drew attention to Montreal’s continuing weakness in wooing foreign shoots, a slump made worse by chilly relations between the Hollywood studios and the Quebec producers association, the APFTQ, which is seeking to bargain on behalf of U.S. film and TV shoots in the province.

Fox had no word on which Vancouver soundstage will accommodate A Night at the Museum.

Meanwhile, Trudel is not dwelling on losing the Fox comedy. His soundstages are currently hosting two big-budget shoots: Warner Bros.’ 300, rolling until February, and Renny Harlin’s The Covenant.