One of the most famous robots in screen history will get a reboot as the star of a new Australian-made series from Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail.
Metropolis is an eight-part original series inspired by Fritz Lang’s 1927 feature film of the same name. The $188 million series for Apple TV+ will be filmed in Australia by Universal Studio Group in conjunction with its local offshoot Matchbox Pictures.
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Pre-production on the series is expected to commence in October, with shooting to begin early 2023. Esmail, who also co-created the Amazon Prime Video series Homecoming, will write and direct all eight episodes.
The series arrives as part of a commitment from Universal to a “pipeline” of production, believed to consist of at least three shows over five years. Such commitments are seen by the local production sector as crucial as the industry seeks to capitalise on the recent COVID-assisted boom and become more sustainable rather than subsisting from job to job at the whim of the Hollywood studios.
Speaking to this masthead in May 2021, as season one of science-fiction drama series La Brea commenced production in Melbourne, Universal’s senior vice president of production Richard Ross said the company’s activity in Australia was “scalable”, but he anticipated it would “probably be three to four television series a year – that’s a lot of production. Each one would be $50-$70 million of spend, so close to $200 million.”
The Metropolis announcement, coming just three months after a $118 million second season of La Brea was announced, and following the recent completion of Irreverent, Joe vs Carole and a second season of Young Rock (all shot in Queensland), makes that prediction appear conservative.
Sam Esmail, the creator of Mr Robot, is reimagining Fritz Lang’s seminal 1927 science-fiction movie Metropolis as an eight-part series for Apple TV+.Credit:Apple TV+
While final negotiations on location are still underway, it is expected the series will be based primarily at Melbourne’s Docklands Studios, where it is likely to become the second big-budget production to use the recently completed Sound Stage 6.
It took former studio boss Rod Allan more than a decade to convince the state government that if they built the studio the productions would come, but the early signs are he was right.
On March 26, the 3700-square metre, $46 million sound stage was finally opened. Two days later the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man rolled in. Metropolis is expected to take over the site as soon as Better Man wraps production.
In tandem with the new sci-fi series, Matchbox/Universal will build a $60 million virtual production facility inside one of the complex’s other, smaller sound stages.
The Victorian state government will contribute $12.5 million to support the construction of the “LED volume” – a massive three-dimensional shooting environment similar to the one developed by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) for The Mandalorian. The federal government has pledged a further $5 million to support students with training in the state-of-the-art technology, through the Victorian College of the Arts at University of Melbourne.
Esmail’s Mr Robot helped make Rami Malek – who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody – a star.
LED volumes are increasingly used in productions of all scales, from the relatively small-budget ABC series Fires, which employed Clayton Jacobson’s Dreamscreen system, to Marvel’s big-budget Thor: Love and Thunder, which used ILM’s large-scale version at Fox Studios in Sydney.
The new permanent volume at Docklands is expected to be among the largest such facilities in the world.
Winning a commitment of this scale doesn’t come cheap, however.
Virtual production technology – here being used at Docklands Studios on the set of La Brea season one – is increasingly part of the nuts and bolts of film and TV production.
The federal government is contributing $83.8 million as part of a deal to attract the Universal production pipeline. In addition, each of the productions under the five-year plan will qualify for the 16.5 per cent location offset, a rebate on the portion of the budget spent here.
The Victorian state government has also committed $41.6 million over five years.
Danny Pearson, Victorian minister for creative industries, said Metropolis would be “among the largest productions to ever film in Victoria”, adding that the new virtual production infrastructure would “cement the state’s reputation as a global screen destination”.
Paul Fletcher, federal minister for the arts, said the productions would create “more than 2100 jobs for local cast and crew” and support “more than 7200 roles for extras”.
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