Netflix to film Clickbait in Melbourne

Melbourne-based Matchbox Pictures and Tony Ayres Productions are working with UK-based Heyday Television on Clickbait, a new eight-part drama for Netflix and NBCUniversal.

The character-based thriller explores the ways in which our most dangerous impulses are fuelled in the age of social media, and is created by Tony Ayres and Christian White.

The drama will film for seven months with a production base at Docklands Studios Melbourne; it will also use various locations around the city when filming begins later this year.

The federal government will provide A$4.9m for Clickbait through the location incentive program, with the Victorian government also supporting the production through Film Victoria’s Production Incentive Attraction Fund.

The show is expected to generate more than A$36m of international investment and employ around 540 cast, crew and extras, according to the Hon Paul Fletcher MP, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts.

The news follows an announcement earlier this month that the federal government and Victoria state government have also secured Paramount Television and Anonymous Content’s 10-part television adaptation of Gregory David Roberts’ best-selling novel Shantaram to film in Melbourne.

The hefty project is expected to bring in around A$55m of investment. It will also be based at Melbourne’s Docklands Studios, with the historic Pentridge Prison in Coburg lined up as one of the location choices. Filming will begin in October.

For more on filming in Australia, head to our production guide.