Maybe there is room for two big studios in Toronto after all, now that both the city and Great Lakes Studios have re-thought their plans to build competing multimillion-dollar soundstages. Both parties, which have raced for more than a year to construct the city’s next and biggest studio, announced late last month that they had reached an apparent win-win compromise. The city will proceed with its plans to put up a purpose-built soundstage on the waterfront, while Great Lakes will instead tailor its site for FX-heavy shoots.

It is thought that both sites, working with this understanding, can draw more business to Toronto.

‘It’s never made any sense to me or people in the industry that two projects in Toronto should be competing against each other,’ says Paul Bronfman, co-CEO at Great Lakes, who first floated the idea of a compromise. ‘I think something like this was probably inevitable.’

Building an FX site should save money for Bronfman and his partner Paul Vaughan, who last fall began the $100-million effort to refit an abandoned power plant into a full-service studio. Great Lakes is a joint effort of Vaughan’s Studios of America and Bronfman’s Comweb Group.

Jeffrey Steiner, president and CEO of the Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO), which is spearheading the city’s Portlands project, says reduced competition will also ease the nerves of investors who, like many on the sidelines, doubt that Toronto could support two megastudios competing head to head.

‘They’ll be much more comfortable,’ says Steiner, on the phone from L.A. ‘I think the film industry has a lot of confidence in Toronto, but to convince bankers with two competing facilities, it’s not so easy.’

Portlands stalled in April when its real estate developer, San Diego’s Sequence Development Group, backed out amid lack of tenancies and financing, and many doubted that the $103-million build would go forward – despite the continued support of the U.K.’s Pinewood Shepperton Studios. The new deal with Great Lakes stands to restart Portland’s engine.

‘Pinewood is still very interested in operating the studio. They will be teaming up with some developers and investors to build a new consortium,’ says Steiner.

TEDCO also recently retained CIBC World Markets as a banking advisor on the project and has been shopping for potential backers in Hollywood and abroad. Construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2004, and the site could open in 2005, although no new investors have been announced yet.

Stakeholders are pleased with the new deal. ‘We’re very excited,’ says Michel Frappier of the Ontario Media Development Corporation. ‘It makes a lot of sense in terms of making Ontario a more attractive jurisdiction for larger movies.’ Toronto mayor Mel Lastman, a longtime proponent of Portlands and the Film Ontario Consortium, previously the Ontario Film and Television Consortium, also applauded the move.

‘Toronto… lacks the kind of large facilities engineered for big-budget productions,’ says Film Ontario co-chair Brian Topp.

Industry observers have long argued that Toronto needs a ‘world class’ studio to keep up with increased competition from regions around Canada and the world. The city has lost considerable business to Vancouver, Montreal, the Czech Republic and Australia since its filmmaking heyday of the late 1990s. The slump got worse this year because of SARS and the rising Canuck dollar.

The studios will be neighbors on Toronto’s waterfront, facing each other across a narrow channel, some five minutes from the downtown core. The mostly industrial area is currently undergoing a $1.5-billion makeover, and it is hoped that the studios will spur the creation of a ‘creativity and innovation’ district.

-www.greatlakesstudios.com

-www.tedco.ca