In early June, Wannasiri Morakul packed her bags and headed to Hollywood from Bangkok. She had several meetings scheduled with big producers and directors from major movie studios like Universal, Warner Bros., and Disney and she wanted to make her home country proud. Wannasiri wasn’t hoping to make it herself as an actress on the silver screen though; she was going to tub-thump Thailand itself as the next big Hollywood star.
Wannasiri is the head of the Thailand Film Office and she travelled with a team of staff to Los Angeles to promote Thailand as a place to shoot movies at the annual Association of Film Commissioners International Locations Show at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank.
She was hoping to capitalise on the success of The Hangover Part II, which by now you must surely know was shot and set in locations around Bangkok and Krabi. The Warner Bros. raunchy comedy sequel premiered in the United States and 40 countries including Thailand on Thursday, May 26 and by the end of the weekend had grossed USD137.4mn in America and USD60.4mn internationally, making it by far the biggest comedy opening weekend ever. After 18 days in theatres globally it had grossed USD432.1mn, on pace to far surpass the original’s total gross of USD467.5mn.
Hangover II may have drawn the world’s attention to Thailand, but the country was already home to a thriving scene of foreign film productions and with the right steps could quickly rise to become a top destination for Hollywood shoots. “It’s up to the local industry now to exploit the momentum from Hangover II, and show the world that Thailand can be more than just Thailand,” says Kong Rithdee, chief film critic for the Bangkok Post. He savaged the film in his reviews for being vulgar and stupid, but would like the movie industry to know about Thailand’s versatility as a place to shoot.
At the locations show in LA, Wannasiri touted Thailand’s local crew talent and varied locations, from pristine tropical islands to gritty cityscapes to jungles and rice paddies. However, in the modern Hollywood of strict budgets and bottom lines, what really matters is how much studio cash can be saved by shooting in a certain location. It’s become regular practice for TV and movies to shoot Vancouver as LA because of rebates and incentives there, for example, and Eastern European cities like Budapest are now standing in for Paris and London because of their affordability. Thailand is already significantly cheaper than the US to shoot a film in, but it doesn’t offer too much in the way of tax incentives or rebates. According to Wannasiri, there is currently a zero per cent “actor’s tax” on the wages of an actor while working in Thailand. Also, in November the Cabinet agreed to waive permit fees at Suvarnabhumi Airport, national parks around the country, and properties under the control of the Royal Forest Department, the Royal Irrigation Department, the Fine Arts Department, the Treasury Department, and the State Railway of Thailand. Wannasiri says she is pushing for more rebates and incentives but that it’s tough because everything must be approved by the Cabinet. And with the election, she’ll have to wait until a new government is formed before anything can be done.
“There’s been quite a lot of movies coming here lately but I think that it kind of comes and goes in phases. It depends where in the world is cheap,” says Tom Waller of De Warrenne Pictures, which produces mid-range international films like the recently released Elephant White, starring Djimon Hounsou and Kevin Bacon.
Indeed, the number of foreign productions and resulting revenues for Thailand have seesawed over the last five years, according to stats from the Thailand Film Office. In 2007, 523 films produced a total revenue of THB1.07bn (USD35.75mn); doubling in 2008 to THB2.02bn (USD67.44mn) although the number of films barely changed at 526. Things dropped off with 496 productions generating THB897.8mn (USD29.91mn) in 2009; and then shot back up with 578 productions generating THB1.87bn (USD62.31mn) in 2010. Up to May of this year, 287 productions have put THB621.66mn (USD20.72mn) into the Thai economy.
Some of the big productions to shoot in the Kingdom in recent years include cult classic The Beach in 1999, Oliver Stone’s Alexander in 2003, Nic Cage’s flop Bangkok Dangerous in 2006 (the last scenes of which were reportedly shot outside of Thailand when Cage fled and refused to return following the coup d’état), and the Weinstein Company’s Shanghai in 2008. Films shot in Thailand that are yet released include Luc Besson’s The Lady starring Michelle Yeo as Aung San Suu Kyi and tsunami disaster pic The Impossible, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts.
One local company that watched Hangover boffo box office figures with more than a passing interest was Living Films, the Chiang Mai-based local production company on the picture. “I’d like to think that the film will be a boon for Thailand,” says Living producer Chris Lowenstein. “If anything else it shows that Thailand can pull it off. Having a Warner Bros. film with a director with carte blanche doesn’t make it any easier. Usually we have budgetary constants, but we didn’t have that with this film. We showed what Thailand can do and I think that Hollywood at high level will notice it.”
Lowenstein says that shooting a film in Thailand is anywhere from a quarter to a half the price of shooting one in the US. For the USD80mn budget Hangover II, they blocked off whole sections of Bangkok’s Chinatown for days and had helicopters hovering around the Lebua hotel to shoot its rooftop venue Sirocco. Despite many requests, Lebua had never allowed any production to shoot at Sirocco but Hangover director Todd Phillips saw the venue and instantly had his heart set on it. Lebua allowed them to shoot there for four days in exchange for being able to market special “Hangovertini” drinks and a weekend “Hangover” booking package for a cool USD2,200. “We are open to interesting projects but, of course, they have to be of similar calibre as Hangover II,” Lebua’s PR director Sipim Sugunnasil wrote in an email. The hotel also held its own premiere screening of the film at Siam Paragon and hired a fleet of tuk-tuks to take guests back to an opulent party at its State Room venue, which is only a snapshot of the way Hangover stimulated the local economy.
“There’s a lot of money and a lot of flow and a lot of other industries that benefit from movies being shot here,” says Lowenstein. Living Films alone earned THB1.72bn (USD56.2 million) from 2006-2010, according to figures from the Thailand Film Office. The Hangover crew stayed in 12 different hotels in Bangkok with the head office set up at the Four Seasons on Rajadamri Road and Lowenstein says that the vehicles hired for the production formed a line over a kilometre long.
Less obvious industries can benefit on a dime from high budget movie productions also, like in the case of the real speedboat crash that occurs near the end of Hangover. The original boat they were planning on using was lost in shipping from California and Lowenstein was already worried about damaging the first boat and having to do a second or third take. “Suddenly we were in contact with every marina and yacht broker in Thailand,” says Lowenstein. “We were purchasing speedboats and we had people painting them 24 hours a day in double shifts. We ended up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on speedboats in Thailand. That’s just a sudden, immediate dent into an industry that didn’t expect us.”
It’s not just American films that can make an impact here as well. Bollywood producers love Thailand for its proximity to India, reasonable pricing, and excellent crew, says Rachvin Narula, executive director of Benetone Films. Benetone is the leading production service company for Indian films in Thailand and has produced about 60 Bollywood titles and over 300 commercials from all over the world. The company earned THB400.93mn (USD13.11mn) from 2006 to 2010, according to the Thailand Film Office. There were also 491 Indian film productions shot in Thailand from 2007 to May 2011, second only to Japanese productions with 569. Breakdowns of revenue by country are unfortunately not recorded, but Indian and Japanese films are not of the same scale as Hangover II. Still, their impact is not trifling. Narula, who is Thai of Indian descent, recently managed the shooting of comedy Ready in Bangkok, one of the highest grossing Bollywood films ever. Indian crew working on that film stayed in 80 hotel rooms and hired about 50 vehicles for 40 days in Bangkok, he says.
If Thailand can capitalise on the momentum from Hangover, these types of scenes should be happening more and more often, with serious financial benefits to the country.
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