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Amazon has purchased Bray Movie Studios close to London, the previous dwelling to the Hammer horror collection of films, in a push to increase its manufacturing of tv collection and have movies within the UK.
Amazon mentioned on Monday that its Prime Video division had acquired the studios, which contains 5 levels, workshops and places of work, for an undisclosed sum.
Bray Studios has already labored with Amazon MGM Studios, serving to produce the second season of the Prime Video collection The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy in 2022.
The subsequent Amazon MGM Studios manufacturing to be made at Bray following the acquisition would be the second season of the Russo brothers’ spy collection Citadel, starring Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Amazon Prime Video additionally makes use of 9 sound levels at UK’s Shepperton Studios.
The deal marks an extra enhance to the UK’s studio and manufacturing sector, which helps make most of the largest Hollywood films at services owned by Disney, Sky, Warner Brothers Discovery and Amazon. Final 12 months, half of the highest 20 movie releases have been made at the least partly in Britain, together with Barbie and Wonka.
US studios specifically have been attracted by tax breaks and entry to proficient staff, though the sector has been hit by the slowdown in manufacturing attributable to the Hollywood strike final 12 months in addition to manufacturing curbs amongst streamers.
This has not stopped a collection of studio developments deliberate, nonetheless, with greater than 3mn sq ft promised in expanded schemes in studios in Elstree, Leavesden, Shepperton, together with proposed studios in cities reminiscent of Sunderland.
Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, mentioned that the US tech big was “dedicated to deepening {our relationships} with the UK inventive neighborhood, which is wealthy with world-class storytellers and inventive expertise of all form”.
Tradition secretary Lisa Nandy mentioned that the Labour authorities was “decided to assist the large potential for financial progress in our inventive industries”.
She mentioned: “This vote of confidence by Amazon MGM Studios will be sure that one in all our main movie studios continues to play an important function in our first-class display screen industries. It should ship a serious funding in expertise and infrastructure to reinforce our standing as Europe’s high film-making vacation spot.”
The location was owned by Bray Movie Studios Ltd. Frank Burke, chair of the group, mentioned that for “70-plus years, Bray Studios has held an essential place within the historical past of British film-making”.
Bray Movie Studios was established in 1951 when Hammer bought an 18th-century English nation home and land previously referred to as Down Place.
Hammer has produced horror and fantasy movies reminiscent of The Mummy, The Curse of Frankenstein, and Terence Fisher’s Dracula. Different productions at Bray Movie Studios have included The Rocky Horror Image Present, Ridley Scott’s Alien, Eric Clapton’s MTV Unplugged TV particular and album and the Elton John biopic Rocketman.