UK among top locations for US-funded films

This was partly due to the UK and Georgia offering the filming incentive programmes with the most generous annual funds, the FilmLA report notes.

Indeed, the UK’s filming incentive support has the largest fund of its kind in the world.

Canada was the most popular with 20 features, the figures show. California hosted ten, but all were at the lower end of the budget scale.

“For the third year in a row, California did not benefit from a single major live-action film with a budget of $100m or more,” the report noted. “In fact, the largest live-action movie budget spent in California was The House (a comedy starring Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, pictured), which had an estimated budget of $40m.”

Upcoming big-budget features like Transformers spinoff Bumblebee and superhero movie Captain Marvel will help tip the budget balance in California’s favour for this year and in 2019.

Nonetheless, for 2017 the US was the main filming location for just half of the best-performing features, which is the lowest share in five years.

American-funded production took place on every continent – except Antarctica – and post-production positions accounted for more than half of the jobs created on the majority of the features with the highest budgets.

Main page image: FreeImages/Adrian B. Article image: Glen Wilson/Warner Bros. Ent/RatPac-Dune Ent