Expectations that Pittsburgh would soon be home to a locally produced, one-hour drama series evaporated this week when financing issues led the 13-episode Netflix streaming series "Hemlock Grove" to pull up stakes and move to Toronto. The production was slated to employ 150 film industry workers, some of whom had already started pre-production work.
Produced by Gaumont International Television and based on a novel by Western Pennsylvania native Brian McGreevy, "Hemlock Grove" filming was scheduled to begin next month at studio space in Monroeville. A local production office has been open in Pittsburgh for several weeks.
"It truly came down to a timing issue, and Toronto worked within our time frame," said Gaumont chief operating officer Richard Frankie in a statement.
Mr. McGreevy, a writer/executive producer on the TV series, and Eli Roth, the show's director/executive producer, were to appear at a public reading from Mr. McGreevy's novel at an East Carson Street bar on May 17; that event was canceled without explanation Thursday.
"It's heartbreaking to me, personally," Mr. McGreevy said Friday from Chicago where he was in transit from Pittsburgh back to Los Angeles. "I got to Pittsburgh a week ago and we were full steam ahead and then we hit an obstruction that was insurmountable, and then I was told to pack up."
In late March the show's producers cited the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit program as a motivating factor for choosing to film in Pittsburgh.
"It just comes down to economics," Mr. McGreevy said. "There were complications that, frankly, I don't completely understand."
In a letter to the Pittsburgh Film Office board, PFO director Dawn Keezer wrote that the change in locations came about because of a lack of understanding on the part of Gaumont management about how the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit program works.
She wrote that Gaumont had planned to "pre-sell" tax credits from the 2012-13 fiscal year to finance their production costs. But film tax credits for the next fiscal year are not available for sale until the commonwealth of Pennsylvania's budget is approved, which is expected to happen by June 30.
In a follow-up interview, Ms. Keezer said the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit program was fully explained to Gaumont executives, who signed two letters of acceptance in March -- one for work done in June that would fall under the 2011-12 fiscal year and another for work done after June 30 that would fall in the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Ms. Keezer said if the commonwealth offers the Film Tax Credit on a multiyear basis, as some other states do, rather than on a yearly basis, it would alleviate similar issues in the future.
"Unfortunately the timing of our production deadlines against the timing of when the state budget and the state incentives were to be approved were just simply not lining up," Mr. Frankie said in the statement. "We appreciate all the efforts of everyone and look forward to working in Pittsburgh in the future."
Gaumont International Television is the newly opened Los Angeles division of Paris-based Gaumont Film Co. "Hemlock Grove" and the NBC series "Hannibal," based on the Hannibal Lecter character from the Thomas Harris novels (including "Silence of the Lambs"), are the company's inaugural projects.
Mr. McGreevy said the "Hemlock Grove" Netflix series will still be set in Pittsburgh and the production may try to shoot second unit scenes (often establishing shots) in Western Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh's recent TV series productions include the Fox pilot "Locke & Key" last year (Fox opted not to order a series) and the 2007 Spike TV series "The Kill Point," which filmed one season in Pittsburgh but was not renewed. "Kill Point" had a budget of approximately $23 million while the budget for "Hemlock" is about $45 million, which would have made it Pittsburgh's most ambitious TV production to date.
Since the Pittsburgh Film Office opened in 1990, only one other project that had already opened offices and hired local workers collapsed before production began -- the proposed 1998 reboot of the "Superman" film series that was to be directed by Tim Burton and star Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel.
First Published: May 12, 2012, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: May 12, 2012, 5:49 a.m.
