There's a new film production facility available in Montreal — and its founders are hoping to capitalize on the growing demand for TV and video content in North America.
Three Montreal entrepreneurs, singer Mitsou Gélinas, her husband Iohann Martin and Andrew Lapierre, launched MTL Grandé in a handful of disused warehouses in Pointe St. Charles in August. They spent 10 months to create a full-service production complex which contains 200,000 square feet of studio, warehouse and office space.
Lapierre says the idea of creating a Hollywood-caliber film facility has been in the works for years.
"We've been in the rental business for almost 20 years for the movie industry here in Montreal, but for the last four years, we've been looking at the market and evaluating when would be a good time to open up more stages in Montreal. And with all of what's going on with the Netflixes of this world...there's such a large amount of production coming up that Montreal could benefit from more infrastructure to attract more productions."
He says that while Montreal has attracted several occasional high-profile film and TV productions in the past, Montreal generally loses out on film productions to places like Toronto and Vancouver, owing to a lack of adequate infrastructure here.
Lapierre says business is booming since his facility opened. At the moment, the complex is booked through next June with the production of the upcoming Jack Ryan TV series. And Lapierre hints this could be just the beginning.
"A lot of people are coming in and asking us [about using the complex]," he says. "2017 is very, very busy for us right now. The timing is very good."
A large part of the reason for that, he says, is the exponential growth of Netflix-produced series.
"Netflix produced in 2015 about 16 series. They did in 2016 close to 30 series. They're planning on doing 80 series in 2017. So they need to shoot this somewhere."
Lapierre is hinting that he might consider expanding, or creating other facilities, if things go well.