Atlanta movie studio hosts grand opening, hear how they plan to boost the Ga. economy

ATLANTA, Ga. (WALB) - Gray Televison Inc., WALB’s parent company, had just opened a film studio in Atlanta with the hopes of bringing more big-screen productions to the Peach State. WALB’s Jim Wallace sat down with one of the studio, called Assembly Atlanta, executives to learn more about his vision for the company’s moviemaking as they hit the ground running.

“I am joined now by Rick Burns. He is the Assembly Atlanta senior vice president. And Rick, you had the grand opening last week and the actors seemed to be ratifying their strike soon. How soon do you think Georgia is going to be bustling with film and TV production?”

“I think pre-production is going to start around December 5th, and we’ll be cranking up in December well into the new year,” Burns said.

How big will production be in Georgia since they’ve been shut down for a while? Will that mean that a lot of people really get going?

“No, I mean, I think it’s going to be there’s about 7,000,000 square feet of stage space in Georgia. And so I anticipate most of those that square footage should be taken up. I think everything’s going to be compressed into the new year, because you know it’s been quite some time since, you know, the writers strike and as well as the actor strike. So I really think the demand is going to be is going to be there. And I think you’re going to see a lot of content being created throughout Georgia. Just to give you an example. You know in 2022. Well, this study from the Georgia Screen Entertainment Coalition, they did an economic impact in 2022 for Georgia, and in terms of production, there are about 60,000 jobs created, about $3.5 billion in labor value. And about almost $8.5 billion in total economic output in Georgia. And so I think. Because of all that and because of everything that Georgia has become. When it comes to. TV and film production, I think you’re going to see those numbers possibly being met or exceeded in the new year,” Burns said.

That is really exciting to know that that many jobs and that much economic outlay coming to the state and now that Assembly Atlanta is here, I’m sure you know, Atlanta is going to become the hub of what’s going on in the in the country.

“Yeah, I mean, I feel like we’re definitely a front-runner now. Georgia is just a fantastic place to film. And I think people are finally, not finally, but really recognizing it for what it is. It’s a great place to do business. And it’s just not TV and film production that’s affected. You have to think about the Halo effect. You have to think about the hotel rooms, tourism, transportation, restaurants and all of that. And so it’s just overall a really good industry and really, really positive for the state of Georgia,” Burns said.

That is some good news right now for the economy. Rick Burns, the senior vice president for Assembly Atlanta. Thank you very much for joining us.

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