Hamilton film, television studios flourish as productions in filming industry suffer

Hamilton has become a home for a booming film and television industry, but at the cost of production in international studios.

Actors Dana Carvey and Rob Lowe spoke on the podcast “Superfly” with the actor David Spade, on how Hollywood is really starting to suffer as the filming industry gets increasingly expensive.

“My favourite is now is, ‘hey you’re going to shoot in Toronto’ and then you get to Toronto and they go ‘actually you’re shooting it in Hamilton’,” said Lowe.

“Hamilton is the new Toronto because there’s even more money to be pocketed – there’s more nickels lying under the maples up there in Hamilton, because you’re 60 miles outside of Toronto…even Toronto’s not good enough now,” said Lowe.

“I guess the question is, how busy does the industry have to be to keep everyone working,” said Zach Zohr, founder and owner of Hamilton Film Studios.

Zohr said that there isn’t enough work in the industry to go around with so many people that trying to get into the business each year.

He said it is largely up to local governments to offer tax credits to incentivize filming.

“If politicians don’t go for it, they’re not going to shoot there, they are going to come to Hamilton,” said Zohr.

Carvey, Spade and Lowe made sure to point out that any credits and subsidies go to the crew behind the cameras and not just the celebrity actors and actresses.

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