The boom is real. The ambition is even greater.
When the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man needed to recreate Stoke-on-Trent, a gritty British industrial town that bears little resemblance to the Pacific Ocean, the production simply relocated to Queensland. “We were able to do it because there was nothing similar in Australia,” said Craig McMahon, CEO of Forte Corp Holdings, which co-financed the film. “And it’s still an Australian film, made here. We have the ability to do it here.”
This isn’t the first time Australia has pulled off the trick. When Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis needed to rebuild Memphis from the ground up, including recreating five blocks of Beale Street, the former Gold Coast city dump, all production was done in Australia and 100% Australian visual effects were used. The recreation was so convincing that visitors from Tennessee believed the movie had been shot on location. Speaking at the MPA seminar at the Tokyo International Film Festival last October, “Elvis” producer Skyler Weiss, who worked with Luhrmann for 20 years on “Australia,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Elvis,” explained the incentive system that makes the film one of the most sophisticated and accessible in the world.
Its ability to be rooted in Australia yet believable anywhere captures something essential about the current position of the country’s screen sector. According to Screen Australia’s Drama Report, drama production costs in 2024-25 will reach a record high of A$2.7 billion ($1.93 billion), an increase of 43% on the previous year. Nearly A$1.3 billion ($929 million) of that came from foreign productions, which nearly tripled in value in 2023-24. Producers, financiers and screen executives who spoke to Variety say the sector is riding real momentum and actively shaping its long-term agenda. This means building on strong economic activity, deepening regional storytelling, strengthening talent pipelines and establishing more durable IP ownership.
There are clear structural factors behind this record number. Revised location offsets (a permanent 30% federal rebate stacked with state-level incentives of up to 15% depending on location) have made Australia one of the most cost-competitive major manufacturing regions in the English-speaking world. Add in a favorable exchange rate and a base of skilled crews built over decades of service work, and the net budget becomes, as McMahon puts it, “very affordable, especially in this climate.” From 2024 to 2025, 20 international films alone generated a record A$1 billion ($715 million) in local spending, with international TV and VOD titles contributing a further A$458 million ($327 million).
Of the 174 titles that went into production during the period, 71 were Australian-produced, down from 89 titles the previous year, with local production accounting for 40% of total spending, compared to 50% in 2023-24. Spending on Australian titles rose 14% to A$1.1 billion ($786 million), led by big-budget features and titles on subscription platforms. Across TV and VOD, titles, hours, and overall spend were all down from last year, with cost per hour being the only metric that increased. This pattern is consistent with the push for premium content and increasing pressure on production costs. Spending on children’s programming fell by 41% year-on-year to A$34 million ($24 million).
“This is a time of recalibration for the industry,” McMahon said. “The commerciality of a project really needs to stack up for it to be greenlit. The presale market is not as strong as it used to be.”
Screen Productions Australia CEO Matthew Deaner reads the changing makeup of the industry as an invitation to strengthen strategy. “There’s sometimes a tension between a lot of international work and domestic work,” he acknowledged, noting that the decline in titles entering production in Australia from 89 to 71 was a number the sector was watching closely. But he is equally clear that now is an opportunity. “We must be mindful of expanding our efforts to reap the benefits of intellectual property development and growth and exports that accompany local stories.”
This intellectual property issue has become one of the most active policy debates in this area. Mr Diener argues that long-term resilience depends on Australian production companies retaining ownership of what they make, pointing to the ‘Bluey’ model, where companies that retain an element of production in their DNA are able to create ongoing work from that foundation, as a template worth building on. “Building intellectual property is part of that,” he says. “We have stabilized the industry by allowing businesses to own the jobs they create, to be able to create other jobs from their own resources, and not always to provide services.”
For Emmanuel Pappas, founder of Sydney-based Asia Pacific Pictures, who returned to Australia after many years working at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles, the answer lies outside Australia’s borders. “What this country is really focusing on is co-production, because we have to bring projects beyond the small market size of our country,” he told Variety. Australia maintains active treaty relationships with Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and a new treaty with India is also beginning to gain momentum. Mr Pappas is currently developing a tripartite agreement spanning Australia, Asia and Europe. He says the model changes the commercial proposition of the project. “This makes it a European film and allows us to take advantage of European release benefits in addition to domestic release benefits, making it a more attractive project in terms of sales,” he says. “That’s the way Australian producers really need to think.”
He sees Australia’s broader regional role in the Asia-Pacific region, allowing local producers to take part in low-budget projects in markets such as Indonesia and Malaysia. “There are mutual benefits for both industries and it can enrich both cultures,” Pappas says. “I continue to advocate for the government to seriously consider this and create mechanisms that will enable Australia to become a true link within the Asia-Pacific region.”
The workforce aspect is directly addressed by the Production Infrastructure and Capacity Analysis (PICA) conducted by Olsberg-SPI and recently published by Screen Australia. The research confirms Australia’s position as a world-class hub for high-value content, identifying four areas that require focused attention: business scalability, skills development, career advancement and infrastructure alignment. For below-line physical production, the roles where employers require the most capacity are line producer, location manager, production accountant, production coordinator, and production manager. In post, digital and visual effects (PDV), and animation, VFX supervisors, technical directors, and editors are flagged.
Almost half (47%) of physical production respondents have been in the industry for more than 20 years. This reflects our depth of experience in the sector and likewise encourages investment in the next mid-career talent coming through the pipeline. Skills transfer between large international productions and local film production is one model that is already showing results. After completing Elvis on the Gold Coast, Weiss produced a small Australian feature film, How to May Gravy, giving a department member from a major production company his first head role in a feature film.
Diener frames the workforce development debate in terms of what the industry needs to do to maintain the gains it has made. “It’s not easy being a first-time director on a project with such a big budget,” he says. “So to train and develop this field, we must always make sure there are smaller projects, projects that don’t involve as much risk as big-budget projects.”
Screen Australia COO Grainne Brunsdon said the findings were a resource that the industry was well placed to act on. “Australia’s screen sector is now experiencing a period of strength and strategic opportunity,” she says. “While we face many of the same headwinds as the global industry, our approach is to view these as opportunities wherever possible and explore new areas of collaboration. It certainly helps that we are trusted globally, offer world-class incentives, foster a renowned co-production program and demand for work with Australian staff and creatives remains strong.”
Infrastructure is expanding with ambition. Our new studio facility in Perth is now up and running. New South Wales has expressed interest in a second major studio in Sydney. PDV spending will increase by 33% to A$762 million ($545 million) from 2024 to 2025, reflecting consistent demand for Australia’s post-production capabilities. PICA’s research recommends that sound stage planning and the preservation of industrial land for screen-related storage be built on through better coordination – proactive rather than reactive measures.
Streaming regulations add an additional dimension. Local content quotas for platforms will become policy in November 2025, and the industry is currently assessing its practical impact. McMahon is an outspoken supporter. “Any steps the government is taking to ensure streamers are encouraging spending on local drama can only be positive,” he says. Diener frames the next step as one of monitoring and improvement. “We want to make sure it works well. It’s fit for purpose.” Meanwhile, Pappas sees the quota framework as a potential catalyst for co-production, arguing that projects structured across multiple regions can meet local content obligations while tapping into international markets at the same time. “From a streamer perspective, I think it just creates more opportunities for streamers to do projects that work across the multiple regions they serve.”
What ties these threads together is a shared belief that the structural conditions are in place, and that the task now is to thread them with intention. For Pappas, that means building bridges of distribution so public investment in Australian stories travels farther and returns more. For Diener, that means protecting the intellectual property that underpins business sustainability throughout the production cycle. For McMahon, that means expanding his ability to raise money so more projects can reach screens, regardless of market conditions.
This record number reflects a sector that has made significant efforts to become an integral part of the global production environment. What is currently being debated in Australia is what to do about that position.
