You know that big musical number in Hairspray “Good Morning, Baltimore”? Yeah well you might as well change that to “Good morning Toronto”. The entire film staring John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Billy Crystal and Amanda Bynes which is based on the hit musical starts shooting in Toronto on September 5th.
Toronto is quickly becoming one of the big locations of choice (and to be honest… has been for a few years now). The city is amazing, the governments attitude towards the creative arts is world renowned, and maybe most importantly the film facilities are second to none. Yahoo news give us this:
Producer Craig Zadan said Baltimore simply doesn’t have the vast soundstages needed to mount such an elaborate production. Although the budget for the movie will exceed $50 million, Zadan said it wasn’t feasible to uproot the production and move it to Baltimore even for a few days of shooting.
Waters, a consultant on the new movie who recently toured potential Baltimore locations with director Adam Shankman, was far from despondent over the news. “It’s not the most shocking thing in the world,” Waters said Wednesday. “It’s a huge, big-budget musical with people dancing, and those generally are shot on sets that they build.”
The production needed two soundstages of more than 40,000 square feet, and such facilities simply don’t exist in Maryland, said Dennis Castleman, assistant secretary for film with the state Department of Business and Economic Development.
They do exist in Toronto. As a matter of fact the amount of studios, sound stages, post-production companies and facilities in Toronto is growing every year. Hell, just the other day Doug and I walked out of my loft on our way to the gym and spotted Don Cheadle sitting on set of his new movie “Talk to Me” not 20 steps from my door. The industry here is getting more and more attention and attracting more and more productions up here. Between Vancouver and here… it really is Hollywood North.
