Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Fringe Moves To Canada

Variety is reporting that due to costs, the production of Fringe is from Long Island's Silvercup Studios to Vancouver, Canada. The area is home to many television productions, especially sci-fi including Stargate, Sanctuary, Eureka, Smallville, Supernatural, and more.

The main reason for the movie is the tax incentives that New York passed over a year ago that caused some programs like Ugly Betty, Fringe, etc to set up stakes in the area has already dried up. With episodes costing $4 million each (!!!), anything that saves money is a good thing. So ironically the Boston set show will have an out of country address but this should open up the production to a wide variety of different locations.

"In this challenging and uncertain economic environment, we have made the very difficult decision to move the production of 'Fringe' from New York to Canada in the event the series is renewed for a second season," said a Warner Bros. Television spokesman. "We are deeply indebted to the talented New York production crew that helped bring the first season of 'Fringe' to life, and we thank them for their invaluable contributions to the show's success."

If it wasn't for the cold, I wouldn't mind moving to Vancouver just for the chance to work in TV or film (behind the scenes of course). I wonder what this will mean for the mostly Hollywood based writing team of Abrams and co? Does it change anything for them?