In 2019 alone, direct investment in film production in Hungary reached $565.6 million, not counting indirect investment in tourism. There are thousands of vendors and individuals that provide services and resources, thus the film industry has created a huge income stream and created opportunities for many people. And all it takes is a celluloid dream. We spoke about the success of filming in Hungary with Adam Goodman, co-partner of Mid-Atlantic Films, producer of – among many-many titles – Blade Runner, Hercules, Die Hard, Terminator, Borderland, Black Widow, Dune and the upcoming Dune 2.

Did it ever help you that you share a name with the ex-Paramount executive, Adam Goodman?

The more famous Adam Goodman? No, no. For many years I used to get emails that were supposed to go to the ex-Paramount Adam Goodman, and we met actually on the set of Hercules. Before that when I was an assistant director on Saving Private Ryan, he was an intern or maybe a junior executive at Dreamworks at the time. Our paths have never crossed career-wise, but we certainly met.

You actually got a DGA award on Saving Private Ryan as a key second assistant director.

As part of Steven Spielberg’s directorial team, I was lucky enough to get a DGA award, yes.

So why did you decide to move to Hungary?

It was not by design; it was an opportunity. I had partnered with Howard Ellis before we established Mid-Atlantic Films and he asked me to do a show here while he was producing a show in Canada, and I ended up doing another show here… So, I started off as a jobbing line producer, and then I was asked to co-produce Aragon for Twentieth Century Fox many years ago. I came to LA, I met with Joe Hartwick and Fred Barron, and I explained that I just established a producing company with my partner, how would they feel if I produced the movie as a production service company. And that was kind of the launchpad for Mid-Atlantic. That was our first show. I took off my line producing hat and we moved forward with establishing and making shows as Mid-Atlantic Film, a production company.

 

Going green is on the very top of every studio’s agenda. How do you service this need?

Studios have developed protocols and guidelines and requests that they make. There’re a lot of practical things we can do in terms of minimizing the use of plastic waste: we use large water dispensers in our offices; on many of our shows we give out water bottles; and in regard to catering, we use biodegradable products, wooden utensils, and [have] gone a long way to reduce our plastic footprint as opposed to our carbon footprint, and we championed that process within the catering.

What about using more modern generators and heating systems?

Super silent generators have been around for a long time. So, from a practical point of view, they’ve become a standard requirement, not just from an environmental point of view. A lot of generators are coming on the market to reduce waste generally. We’re probably the first company that started using pellet heaters (that burn compressed wood or biomass pellets), so rather than using gas and oil to supply large heating units that sometimes we use for big spaces, we use them, and for places outside of the studio complex. These are not just cost-efficient but also environmentally friendly.

Have you replaced gas-run cars with electric cars?

We have a number of those that we generally use for our crew members. And we’re promoting using electric cars both from an environmental and a budgetary point of view.

Do you have green stewards on set?

On every show we have, depending on the size, a green department, where production assistants are tasked with monitoring waste. They create the paperwork and the assessments, and also at the end of the production they provide reports detailing how the production effectively reduced their footprint to make sure they were environmental-friendly. A few years ago, it was no more than a request from the studio. It’s now become a department in its own right monitoring environmental issues across the show.

When a production leaves, it usually leaves a mess. How do you make sure you leave the environment clean or may even add to its previous condition?

We don’t intentionally ever destroy anything. If it’s part of a sequence that we temporarily have to remove a flower bed or something environmental, it’s always part of our agreement with the local authority or landlord or the location’s owner that we replace it. Generally speaking, we’ve always left locations in a better condition, even greener than to begin with. We just did a project for Sony and at the end of the show, Sony with Mid-Atlantic agreed to plant flowers at the end of the shoot at a certain location where we’d been welcomed. The Hungarian National Heritage Authority who agreed for us to use this significant Budapest location was obviously very happy with the way we left that location because we left it greener than we began with.

You’re not Hungarian, but you stayed in Hungary. Why not Prague, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sofia, Bratislava or Bucharest?

It’s interesting you ask about Prague because I had just done a picture for Fox in Prague before I came to Hungary. I loved Prague, had a wonderful experience there. When I first came to Hungary, the two cities, just as a pure living experience, were very different: Prague is much smaller. Hungary, Budapest was more diverse, richer in terms of places to go, things to do, and I just enjoyed the lifestyle, the people, and honestly, the Hungarian crew, that was a big part of why I stayed in Hungary. I was a filmmaker, experienced in working with professionals that are passionate and experts at what they do, but also very nice and very friendly, and very respectful, and it’s an important thing.

But there were no tax breaks, no real studio facilities, no real future in sight in Hungary – so you were off to a bumpy start.

The first show was not done under the tax incentive, at a low-cost price relative to other places, certainly in the US and the UK. When the tax incentive was launched, I think I was a line producer on the show. But certainly, the 20%, 25% and then an even higher % of the tax incentive put Hungary on the map from the international filmmakers’ perspective. So, when the US and the UK-based production houses saw that there was a pretty professional skill base, infrastructure and an incentive, that became a hard package to beat. Obviously, today there’s a great competition now with similar tax incentives and crew basis in the region, but it’s still a very difficult package to beat.

20,000 people are employed in the film industry in Hungary. And it’s a fact that you completed over 20 productions in 2019. How deep is the Hungarian industry in terms of crews?

It varies depending on the type of movies that we and the others do. If you’re doing a present-day, non-action, non-special effects and stage-based, not location-based, as opposed to doing a Blade Runner or Dune or Halo, some of the bigger film or TV projects, we can support 5-6 shows a year in physical production and have preproduction at the same time. Hungary’s crew base and skill set has grown significantly over the last 10 years in particular, but perhaps not enough to keep up with capacity at a time. We had good experiences with our long-term partners, and that led to long-term relationships with Netflix, Sony, Paramount, Lionsgate. They’re comfortable with the support they get. When you’re shooting on a distant location, far from your hometown, you want to bring as few people as possible, purely from the cost perspective. Hungary can provide more and more crew that don’t need to be replicated or replaced by a foreign hire. On a big production that can be a challenging job. We did a big job for Lionsgate, Borderland, where we had an 80-90% local crew in all key positions, art director, set decorator, etc., so we were basically a local show for the most part.

Studio space? How big, how many, how competitive are they?

We have now, I would say world-class stage facilities and a growing number of facilities that were not built as stage facilities but now are being used as stage-like facilities: Korda, Origo, Astra, Mafilm, Stern, and they get booked up very early now. US and UK companies understand that in order to have a footprint in Hungary, they have to make a commitment much earlier than they used to 5 or 10 years ago. We’re discussing with our partners 2023 right now. Because of experiences they’ve had on previous shows, they want to return, and they don’t want to be second or third out of the gate.

Competition has grown and more and more production service companies have popped up. How do you handle the competition?

It’s safe to say that we have a competition that’s generally healthy. If a company is providing good service to a partner, and that partner wants to come back, that’s a good thing. People should have choice; you always strive to be better than anybody else. In the last few years, there has been enough work and type of shows that would provide work for many companies, big or small, to maintain Hungary’s good reputation.

Competition outside of Hungary has also grown with more tax breaks in neighboring countries: Ireland has 37%, Belgium 30-45%, Estonia, Hungary 30%, Poland 30%, Czech 20-25%, France 30-40%, and the UK has 25%. How do you navigate in that environment?

The net benefit is 37.5 % in Hungary. What I used to say many years ago was that productions chose Hungary because it was a cheaper place to go and we had a good tax incentive, but sometimes it was not the best place to shoot a movie. Now, Hungary has a combination of tax incentives, stages, crew base, diverse locations, a very attractive proposition. Strip away the rebate and look at the unit cost: how much a hotel room, an electrician or a car costs you? We are 2 or 3 times less expensive than any of the places you mentioned even without the rebate. But there always will be other places that might be a better fit for that type of show. The Martian was a turning point for us in that respect, and once we demonstrated we can also make movies of that type of dimension, it opened the door to the creatives that Hungary is the place where you could do more than just a medieval-type project. If you approach Hungary in the right way and see what works, and understand the creative opportunities, there’re more ways you get very good value for your money.

How did Covid affect your work?

Covid affected us much less than you would expect. When the world shut down, with the help of the Hungarian government and the Hungarian Film Office we managed to bring in foreign productions – and that was a big help for us. And we were able to continue production right up until now. Like every show, obviously, we had shutdowns and it is still not easy, but Hungary was one of the few places and the film industry one of the few industries that would go on despite the challenges.

How many movies have you made, Adam?

I don’t keep count, but I’ve been in the business for 35 years. Several hundred, that’s for sure.

How about the paparazzi? Do they leave the stars alone?

We had occasional issues, but it’s mostly the fans who camp out at the five-star hotels where talent is staying. And if you have a Tom Hanks or a Harrison Ford, they are walking around, Arnold Schwarzenegger is going around… when actors make themselves visible, it’s good psychology. They tend to be left alone more than if they’re constantly in hiding to avoid publicity.

What are you currently shooting and what’s the upcoming slate?

We did a science fiction project called Distant for Amblin, Steven Spielberg’s company. We did the Nicolas Cage movie, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. We just did a small but interesting movie called The Bride for Screen Gems, and did Borderlands for Lionsgate, an exciting project. We’re currently in production for the finale of The Last Kingdom special, in preparation for a big miniseries, also in preparation for a large theatrical movie and there’re at least 4-5 films in development that are coming to us. This year will be as busy as last year, the development slate is much bigger, and the planning ahead is much longer than ever before.

Which country, in your opinion, is No. 1 now on the production scene in Europe and what’s missing in Hungary if anything?

Hungary is No 1. And I would say there’s nothing missing other than the ability to develop, train and expand the film industry. The stages are great, but without the crew to support them, it doesn’t help. If you say to a producer that you need to bring in 75 more crew members, that can make a difference for a studio deciding even if we have the stage space available. That’s the responsibility of Mid-Atlantic and others when to say yes and when to say no. We’ve become much more sophisticated as a film hub. The question is can they grow quick enough to provide what the studios need. Right now, we turn away as many shows as we accept because of capacity.

Finally, everybody’s excited about Dune 2. I know you signed an NDA, but whatever you can tell us will be appreciated.

We’re all thrilled, especially coming off the success of the first one, and everything is progressing well. All I can say is it’s going to start shooting this year.