Industry Film | ||
Founded 3 June 1991; 25 years ago (1991-06-03) Website www.movieworldstudios.com.au | ||
Village Roadshow Studios are a set of film studios located in Oxenford, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The studios are owned by Village Roadshow and consist of nine sound stages as well as a range of other production facilities. The studio commenced in June 1991 and is one of three film studios in Australia, the others being Fox Studios and Docklands Studios Melbourne. The studios have been home to countless feature films, telemovies, TV series and miniseries. Recent productions include San Andreas, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Scooby-Doo and House of Wax and Ghost Ship. TV productions have included Terra Nova, BeastMaster and the Lost World series.
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History
Village Roadshow Studios opened in 1986 and was originally built by DEL (Dino DeLaurentis). Village Roadshow purchased the company DEL and took over the facility in 1988. The Studios were built before Movie World in 1991 and they are adjacent to the Warner Bros. Movie World theme park. Despite their physical proximity and operational links, the studios and theme park are separate entities.
The theme park, and the studios' management have no involvement with productions and, as such, do not recommend cast, crew or extras. This is done independently by the production. However, experienced Warner Bros. Movie World staff are often involved in productions filmed at the studios. The studios are not open to the general public and as the productions are independently owned, permission to go on-set can only be obtained from the production itself.
In June 2004, a fire in Sound Stage 8, during the production of House of Wax, destroyed the sound stage and resulting in the loss of millions of dollars worth of film equipment.
Facility
The facility consists of 9 sound stages, three water tanks (two outdoor and one indoor; one of which is the largest purpose built film water tank in Australia), 10 production areas, 5 construction workshops, onsite support facilities, 2 wardrobe and laundry facilities, accounting services, lock ups, screening and editing, preview theatrette, visual effects studio, film processing, post production, travel and freight services, and much more.
In addition to producing a variety of television shows and films, the studios have also been used by the adjacent Warner Bros. Movie World theme park. When the two facilities opened in 1991, a Studio Tour was run from Warner Bros. Movie World throughout the production areas of the Village Roadshow Studios before returning to the Movie Magic Special Effects Show. In 2011, both Sound Stage 1 and 2 were utilised for the theme park's annual halloween event, Fright Nights. The Saw and Zombie Apocalypse mazes were housed in these studios throughout October.
In 2018, some sound stages will be used for the 2018 Commonwealth Games and play host to sports such as boxing and table tennis. Temporary spectator seating will be installed for a total of 6,200 people for the two sports.