TVA Group has announced that, to reinforce its positioning on the foreign blockbuster and TV series market, the studios of Canadian TV and movie industry leader MELS will be enlarged with the construction of MELS 4, with support from the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal.
MELS 4 will be built to high environmental standards, giving it a competitive edge on the global market and aligning it with the company’s commitment to environmentally friendly production practices. The project is set to be completed in spring 2023.
The $53M infrastructure project will be built to the most stringent industry standards, with fully air-conditioned and soundproofed facilities to provide ideal filming conditions. An additional $23M will be spent on equipment over a 10-year period. MELS 4 will have ceilings with a clear height of 50 feet and a total area of 160,000 square feet, including a 60,000-square-foot soundstage divisible into two smaller stages. The remainder of the space will house staging areas, workshops, production offices and ancillary functions.
“The construction of a new, world-class studio like MELS 4 is essential in order to maintain the vitality and competitiveness of both Montreal and Quebec on the worldwide audiovisual production market. Attracting more film shoots to our studios will bring in more financial and economic resources from abroad, benefiting Quebec’s economy, its cultural industry and its local artists and crews,” says Pierre Karl Péladeau, President and CEO of Quebecor.
In order to stimulate competitiveness, productivity and job creation in Quebec, the Government of Quebec, through Investissement Québec, will extend a $25M loan to support the construction of MELS 4. The project will also receive backing from the City of Montreal, including in terms of obtaining LEED certification.
“MELS has already built a worldwide reputation for first-class facilities, expertise and services. With MELS 4, we will be able to offer an even more attractive package that meets the growing needs of the big-budget film and TV industry. In tandem with the technological shift we undertook in 2020 – most notably with the launch of our new virtual production stage – this project will be a differentiator in a fiercely competitive market, both internationally and here in Canada,” says MELS President Martin Carrier.
Upon completion of MELS 4, MELS will have 21 studios totaling over 500,000 square feet of production space, including over 270,000 square feet for soundstages. Some of the major international productions filmed at MELS studios include Transformers, the latest installment in the Home Alone franchise, Midway, Bold Type, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, X-Men: Apocalypse, Quantico, Mirror Mirror, The Day After Tomorrow, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Life of Pi, Catch Me If You Can and many more.
