Over the years, Netflix has been one of the best things I have ever spent money on. As time goes on, the value, at least for me, becomes even greater, especially with the wealth of original programming that is continually being produced.
And that’s one of the main reasons I love Netflix; they have a strong ethos in creating content for a global audience, with a multitude of shows produced in many country’s native languages (and not just subtitled or dubbed). In 2018 alone, the streaming giant had a global spend of £8billion creating content. That’s a mind-boggling figure!
The reason why this is pertinent today is that according to a news article from the Birmingham Mail, representatives from Film Birmingham, Birmingham City Council’s Film and Television office, sent someone over to Los Angeles to a Netflix Conference, to discuss their future roadmap for expanding their reach across the globe.
It’s reported that there will be a new partnership with Netflix to create a global locations database, meaning Netflix will have immediate and direct access to Birmingham and all its filming locations for future productions. (The Midlands being an area that is far cheaper for productions to use, compared to filming in and around London for instance).
Not only that, but they are also planning to double the amount of content they make in Europe over the next two years. With other high profile productions already using Birmingham (the likes of Peaky Blinders from Birmingham based director Stephen Knight, and also Hollywood royalty such as Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ partially filmed in Birmingham city centre a couple of years ago, as well as some scenes from Kingsman: The Golden Circle and American Assassin).
With Birmingham being one of the newest hotspots attracting this calibre of production, it can only be a good thing to attract more like this in the future; something which will bring a great boost to the local economy – creating jobs for local crews, bring in more business for local production companies as well as facilities like hotels, serviced apartments, restaurants etc. The trickle down effect can be substantial.
According to Film Birmingham – “We expect Netflix business operations to increase significantly in the West Midlands”. Hopefully even more so when Stephen Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, gets to build his film studios in Birmingham.
The West Midlands could be the next major creative hub of the UK. The cherry on the cake of course would be to also welcome Channel 4 to the fold too! (Fingers crossed….)
With us, as a team who have lived and worked in Birmingham all our lives, this news is very exciting! Let’s hope this will bring a new dawn to the West Midlands, to ensure it becomes a powerhouse in content creation in the years to come.