Vast Broken Hill film studio selling for the price of a Sydney unit
Mad Max may have brought the apocalypse to movie screens last year, but he also caused some mayhem in his character’s homeland, the NSW country town of Broken Hill.
Locals’ dreams of having a state-of-the-art film studio have finally been dashed five years after Mad Max director George Miller switched the shoot of the fourth action film in the franchise from the outback mining hub to the African country of Namibia.
Now the council, which spent $2 million on turning part of an old power station servicing the mines into a studio especially for the making of Mad Max: Fury Road, is selling the site, admitting it has become a white elephant.
The exterior of the old power station. Photo: Supplied
“We were all disappointed when the film moved away from Broken Hill and it is sad that we’re now selling the studio,” said Broken Hill mayor Darriea Turley.
“But on the other side, we still hope to attract films to Broken Hill and the sale will have a flow-on effect into the local economy.”
The making of Mad Max: Fury Road in Broken Hill was cancelled when the drought suddenly broke in NSW, and film-makers found the landscape green and verdant, instead of looking like the red and dusty deserted end of the world.
After shifting to Namibia, the film became the most successful Australian movie ever, picking up a record six Oscars in March this year.
The Broken Hill studio, however, never recovered from the blow, and while a number of films were subsequently made around the town, few made use of it.
It’s now been put up for sale as part of a 2.5-hectare commercial site comprising multiple buildings that were part of the old 1920s Central Power Station.
The main buildings on the old power station site. Photo: Supplied
The whole site goes to auction on Monday, with the sale expected to raise between $500,000 and $1 million for the council to help recoup some of its costs.
The studio part of the site is being billed as ‘a living museum with an art deco charm and lends itself to a number of uses – subject to council approval’.
“The area was renovated in 2011 to be the film studio precinct with the rest of the area left in its original state after the power station closed in 1986,” says sales agent Zeta Bennett, of Broken Hill First National Real Estate.
“It was used for the pre-production of Mad Max: Fury Road, and leased to them, but then the film went overseas.
“Now it’s basically vacant at this stage. There are always films and TV series and commercials being made in the area but they’re usually on location; they don’t use the studio.”
Inside one of the old power station buildings. Photo: Supplied
That’s been true of lots of productions made in the remote town.
With a proud history of film-making dating back to the 1971 classic Wake In Fright, and including Mad Max 2 in 1981 and The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert in 1994, more recent projects filmed in Broken Hill include Strangerland and Last Cab To Darwin – neither of which were filmed at the studio.
A frame from Mad Max 2, filmed near Broken Hill. Image: Equinox
“Films do still come here, and our dream is to develop a local industry where we can make our own films,” said local film-maker Jason King. “But Mad Max going was a blow. The challenge was always competing with other studios around the country, which are a lot closer to major cities and easier, and less expensive, to get to.
“But whether the buyer of the site will want to keep the studios going … We can dream!”
Broken Hill Council made the decision to sell up after calculating that the studio was costing $260,000 in depreciation and about $90,0000 in maintenance a year. The studio’s 2010 business plan said that, to make it worthwhile, about 130 productions would have to be booked in before 2020.
Now the mayor hopes a business will buy the site and develop it into a whole new industry for the town. “The price of real estate in our capital cities is out of reach for many, but here it’s still very affordable,” Ms Turley said.
