Calgary is ready for Hollywood

A new film studio has been opened in Calgary with nearly 100,000 square feet of filmable space and it hopes to attract major productions.

Studio operator William F. White International Inc. (WFW) has opened its first facilities in Calgary, Alberta, called Fortress and Fortress+ Support.

Fortress Studio offers clients 97,500 square feet of indoor film space and the height of 36 feet within the 109,100 square foot facility and targets major Hollywood movies and series production. The nearby Fortress+ Support acts as a supplementary property with almost 70,000 square feet of support space and 20,000 square feet of private offices, boardrooms, and additional workspaces.

Both properties are a short driving distance away from each other, and there is also a large outdoor green space making all aspects of production easy and efficient for film companies.

WFW has altogether around 30 soundstages with about 1 million square feet of production space in their other 9 studios operated in Toronto and Vancouver where these venues are already filled with different A-list productions, so the first studio in Calgary arrives after there is a steady flow of Hollywood shoots heading north of the border because of the pandemic.

The film and TV production sectors are flourishing in Alberta. Recently Robin Wright’s directorial debut “Land” was rolling here for Focus Features, near the Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary. But for instance, before the pandemic “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”; “Jumanji The Next Level”; Walt Disney’s “Togo” and Netflix zombie drama “Black Summer” were all shooting here.

To give a little comparison, one of the biggest studios in Hungary is Korda Studios, which is a state-of-art film studio complex located 18 miles west of Budapest in the famous wine-making village of Etyek. There are 6 state of the art sound stages on 160,000 square feet with one of the biggest soundstages in the world with an area of 64,500 square feet and net buildable height of 20 meters. With more than 30,000 square feet of production accommodations, nearly 75,000 square feet of warehouse and workshop areas, 37 acres of empty backlot space suitable for set construction and around 25 acres of backlot sets: New York, Renaissance and Medieval.

Hungary’s other major studio – Origo Studios in Budapest has 9 large soundstages, 2 smaller TV sound stages, a green screen stage, virtual set, water tank and additional postproduction facilities. These have been providing a strong infrastructure for many productions since its opening 10 years ago. The 9 soundstages are a total of around 195,000 square feet with 10 acres of backlot. There are also 4 office buildings attached to the soundstages with 31,200 square feet of office space for rental and a standard 1000 square feet greenbox stage and a large water tank.

Origo and Korda Studios can take pride in the filming of such A-list productions as “47 Ronin”, “Atomic Blonde”, “Radioactive”, “Inferno”, “Spy”, “Blade Runner 2049”, “The Martian”, “Black Widow” and “Dune”.