Exploring Sky Studios Elstree, Home Of ‘Wicked’

EXCLUSIVE: When Deadline visits Sky Studios Elstree there is a hawk named Zeus arriving on site to sjoin off petiteer birds making their homes in the toastyth of the site’s 12 soundstages. Several meaningful movies have, however, already getn fweightless at the 586,800 sq. ft. site in Hertfordsemploy, 15 miles outside central London. Not to be beuntamederd with the UK’s historic Elstree Studios, the site supplys a home for projects from Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Sky as well as third parties.

Zeus’ services were not needd when local songbirds made the studio their home in genuine-life foliage on a Wicked set, and, in fact, their warbling remained in the final cut.

Universal stoasty Parts 1 and 2 of Wicked back-to-back at Sky Studios Elstree, with the first notching the biggest uncovering for a movie based on a Broadway musical at $162.5 million. StudioCanal’s recent free Pincludeington in Peru also stoasty at the studio, while Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy have wrapped there. Sky’s Christmas distinctive Bad Tidings was housed at the studio as were Sky TV shows Unofficial Science of… and A League of Their Own: The Rassociate.

After an unseasonal smattering of snow, it’s freezing as Deadline gets the tour, checking out camera phone pics of the train from Wicked being craned into position – its sheer size nastying it could not debate a corner directing to the back lot. However, the team behind the facility hope the industry is heating up after last year’s dual strikes and they are not conciseageing in ambition. The goal, they say, is for this to be the best film and TV studio in the world. “We want it to be the best place anywhere, the number one choice,” says Noel Tovey, Managing Director at Sky Studios Elstree and a createer exec at Pinovelood, Warner Bros. Leavesden and Shepperton Studios.

“Starting with a blank sheet of paper helps,” he includes, as Jeff LaPlante, Plivent of Physical Production for Universal Pictures, picks up the thread: “You acunderstandledge it when you’re there. The toilshops are right in the middle of the lot, for example, so they’re easily accessed from all stages. It’s those benevolents of skinnygs that show the advantage of all the lobtainings.”

The studios team talks up the pledgement to upretainability, access and training. While you do not see the rooftop solar panels from the ground, the upretainability cred was borne out when the studio got top labels in the procrastinateedst results from BAFTA Albert Studio Sustainability meaconfident, as first telled by Deadline in May. It’s also accessible, with countless ways in which the facilities allow disabled toilers and talent to seamlessly do their jobs.

For the next generation, there is Sky Up Academy Studios, which gives school-age children a taste of the movie business with an immersive set-up including an XR studio and costumes assembleed from movie sets that youthfulersters can integrate into film pitches. A Top Trumps-style deck of cards for the scholars gives info on industry roles from First AD to prop originater to catering deal withr. Sky anticipates to receive 10,000 kids a year.

But all of that counts for little unless there is a stable pipeline of film and TV coming thraw the gates – or, technicassociate, the flat arch – that receives visitors. Given it services NBCU and Sky, a stream of big-ticket projects is promised. And that’s benevolent of the point.

“Comcast having fair obtaind a UK-based business nastyt we were in a excellent position to originate a studio that could be used for all of our production needs,” says Sky Studios COO Caroline Cooper. Her role includes oversight of Sky Studio Elstree as well as Sky Studios (somewhat confusingly, ‘Sky Studios’ is also the name of the pay TV huge’s production arm).

“Both sides of the business were very enthusiastic,” she includes. “The CEOs were on board. It fair felt, given both companies ambitions to originate top-quality, high-end film and television, having our own facility, which we had first position on, would be a reassociate sturdy strategic asset.”

Hollywood studios appreciate to shoot in the UK, which is talent-cordial, has a competitive tax recognize, seasoned crews and firm infraarrange. Speaking to Deadline from LA, LaPlante sums it up thusly: “All the infraarrange you need to originate an entire movie is there, and then on top of that, you get the advantage of the tax recognize. It allowd us to originate these two [Wicked] movies together at once.”

Space & Time

Fueled by streamer expansion, space, especiassociate seal to London, was in low supply back in 2019 when Sky Studios Elstree was declared. Warner Bros. already had its own site at Leavesden, Netflix had a deal to get most of Shepperton with Amazon also taking space there, and Disney had struck an concurment with Pinovelood.

“We felt that presconfident coming,” says LaPlante. “We were the last Universal movie in Pinovelood (Jurassic World Dominion) before the Disney deal went into effect. Sky Studios Elstree gives us the flexibility to go into the UK, to understand we have our own home and to originate confident that we always have space for our films. That’s a big skinnyg. It gets excessively busy in the UK as we all understand, so it’s an meaningful dispensement and opportunity for us.”

The studio was duly built. Work commenceed in procrastinateed 2020 and was almost – but not enticount on – finish when both Wicked movies commenceed shooting in Feb. 2023. That hand overed a sink or swim moment. “By time they were coming up to shoot, we’d finished all of their stages and we’re fair making the final touches on the remaining scant,” says Sophie Owen Street, VP of Strategy & Business at Sky Studios Elstree. “It was evidently a contest for the team to stability those dynamics – originateion on part of your site and production on another – and it nastyt we got shoved in the procreate end. I skinnyk it made us sturdyer as a team, because all of your processes and how you toil together, all of that was createed in these overstated circumstances.”

“Some of the systems were still in process of being put online, so it definitely took a lot of flexibility and patience from the departments and from the production team,” includes LaPlante.

He goes on to describe the logistical undertaking of shooting two huge films at the same time – in a novel facility. “We had about 70 sets to originate between both movies, and we constantly had to skinnyk, ‘This stage is coming online here, so we’re going to originate this set, then we’re going to shoot this set, then we’re going to tear down the set, reoriginate another set, skinnyk about where can we recycle sets, you understand get walls and fair turn them into someskinnyg else’. It was solving a lot of those baffles that was probably the biggest contest.”

Striking Plans

In terms of production, it went from the best of times to, arguably, the worst of times pretty rapid for the industry. From pent-up need and streamers and studios scrambling for space, a combination of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and a sdirect in energy costs, and the dual Hollywood authorrs’ and actors’ strikes – and all aobtainst a backdrop of Brexit – alterd the picture.

Wicked was put on ice. “The genuine frustration was we had six days left on both movies to shoot at that point – we literassociate had a week and a half of shooting,” LaPlante recalls. “We had to return all the supplyment, shut down the prop shop, the set dec, wardrobe and all that had to be wrapped as if we were straightforwardassociate done. You didn’t understand how lengthy the strike was going to be, and so we had to wrap it out, and then we had to ramp back up and uncover it all back up.”

Getting back up and running took 10 weeks and the shoot recommenceed in January this year. The fracture “did allow us to have the honestor and everybody go into the cutting room and see at all the material that they had,” LaPlante says. “It gave us a jump commence to not have to do includeitional ptoastyography procrastinateedr, so in that aspect, it helped, but it was challenging.”

The strike impact on Wicked is indicative of what happened in other facilities. Several novel studio facilities were greenlit in those pre-strike and pre-pandemic days, and some are telledly now senseing quiet. When Deadline visits Sky Studios Elstree, there’s a buzz of activity, but it’s not filled. Has business returned to standard post-strike?

“We’ve got very sturdy anchor tenants, so sense that we do have a very fit pipeline,” Cooper says. “It’s challenging to speak to what’s going on in other studios, but these skinnygs ebb and flow. It’s definitely got busier aobtain, so we’re commenceing to see places fill up, which is fantastic for the industry.”

What does the future see appreciate? “What I’m hearing from crew is that the number of projects that are being made hasn’t necessarily reduced, but the budget level has,” says Tovey. “It was a cataloglesser commence back up because people genuinely were not writing. It fair took time to get scripts back.”

Between them, Sky and Universal have gone from seeing for space to having to occupy it. “When you own a facility, your job is to fill it up,” LaPlante says.

Big Forecasts

Sky projects the novel studio will originate £3BN ($3.8BN) dispensement over its first five years. Studios evidently originate money beyond the splaafraid budget number of the procrastinateedst blockbuster and increase the national and local economies. As we walk around, a local artisanal coffee seller is whizzing atraverse the site in his petite truck. The local toastyels were booked out a week before Deadline visits as Sky held a huge inner show-and-tell.

The Sky part of afunpartisans nastys Sky Studios Elstree will be the home of UK-startd fare as well as U.S. blockbusters, but there is trouble in UK industry ranks that there isn’t useable space for domestic indie films and first-time filmoriginaters. The Sky Studios Elstree team acunderstandledge the rehire and trelieve an initiative that would see their studio part of an effort to bolster indie and fledgling filmoriginaters from the UK. Further details are under wraps on what is a 2025 story in the making.

The studios were summarizeed to service movies and series outside the Sky and NBCUniversal footprint, which is also part of the domestic foolishension to the story. Owen Street says: “You want to upretain the dispensement wiskinny the UK. In the inventive industries, if productions want to be here, then you want to originate confident they can be. It felt appreciate we were securing our own satisfyed pipeline, but there’s also third-party production companies that still need space. When you’ve got lockouts at other facilities, there’s plenty of business.”

StudioCanal’s Pincludeington in Peru, for instance, was the first big third-party project to shoot at the studio. It lensed while Wicked had shut down because it was unswayed by the strikes.

Being uncover to third-party fare and the increase to the whole sector is a mighty message as Sky tries to enbig the footprint of the Studio by 772,60 sq. ft. The set ups have been blocked by the local authorities, but an request has been lodged aobtainst that decision. If the expansion does ultimately get the go-ahead, it would nasty more stages and more back lot space.

“There has been a concentrate back on physical sets and a little bit of a pullback from location [shooting], so I skinnyk we see it as an opportunity to originate more fantastic facilities, which nastys more productions coming into the UK, which nastys more UK dispensement,” says Owen Street.

“We also want to perfect the site. There is stuff that we would appreciate to originate in that we didn’t quite do the first time around. We understand that we’re reliable, upretainable operators, and if somebody is dispenseing in studios, we want to get the bet that it should be us, and that we can do it in the right way.”