Bruce Constantineau
Sun
Lions Gate officials Nat Bosa (left), Paul Clausen and Richard Weir plan to expand studio business. Photograph by : Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun
Condo developer Nat Bosa already knew the fears that would arise as soon as he announced his $41.6-million purchase last week of Lions Gate Studios in North Vancouver.
Skeptics might see a savvy builder buying a 14-acre site to become the future home for a series of highrise condo towers.
But Bosa insists those fears are off base. He said he bought the film production facility to complement his existing Mammoth Studios operation in Burnaby, and he wants to become a major player in the $1-billion-plus B.C. film industry.
“We bought a business and we plan to enhance it,” he said in an interview. “We intend to get bigger at it and better at it.”
Bosa has already met with City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto to assure him Bosa Development Corp. wants to expand the film business on the North Shore and the mayor was relieved by Bosa’s visit, admitting he was concerned about the film studio’s future under an owner best known for building upscale residential units.
“I’m much more reassured now that they’re looking out for the best interests of the studio,” Mussatto said. “I think it will be a real win for the city because he may well want to expand the studios at some point.”
The chance to buy Lions Gate Studios first arose last October when a real estate broker approached Bosa with a proposal, as studio owner Lionsgate Entertainment Corp. was looking to shed what it considered a non-core asset. The North Vancouver studio has eight sound stages with a total of 121,000 square feet of space, and has operated near full capacity since it opened in 1989.
Recent feature films shot at the facility include Man About Town starring Harrison Ford, and R.V. starring Robin Williams, while 2006 projects include Scary Movie 4 and Chaos Theory.
Bosa said the synergies of combining Lions Gate with Mammoth Studios and its four huge sound stages (totalling 307,000 square feet) were obvious, so he essentially told his senior executives to buy it because the deal made sense.
The 61-year-old builder first entered the film business about four years ago when he bought a Burnaby warehouse that would eventually become Mammoth Studios. Despite being a non-expert in film production — “I know absolutely zip!” — he recognized that the building had tremendous film-production potential as soon as he walked in.
“It had these 40-foot-high ceilings and huge amounts of space,” Bosa recalled. “I had been to Universal Studios enough times with my kids to know that this was a perfect place to produce films.”
So Bosa Development paid $16.65 million for the property and invested millions more to turn Mammoth into a home for productions like The Santa Clause 2 and X-Men 3.
“To be honest, we invested a lot of money there without a helluva lot of knowledge,” Bosa said. “It was a gut-feel type of thing. I didn’t panic when we went through a few months where we didn’t have any revenue, and we were proven to be right because now it’s in full use and will be for the rest of the year.”
Bosa has retained the Lions Gate Studios management team to run his merged operation — including studio head Peter Leitch and director of operations Paul Clausen. It will be their job to attract film and television productions, he said, while Bosa focuses on being a great landlord that provides excellent production facilities.
“These guys are going to get all the backing they need to make this the best there is, I’m not kidding you,” Bosa said. “We’re here to make this a great business.”
Lionsgate Entertainment began in Vancouver but now does most of its business in California, so Bosa plans to get rid of the Lions Gate Studios name and rebrand its merged studio operations with a new name by the end of this year.
He said that if a growing B.C. film industry needs even more production space in the future, he wants to provide it. He said expansion of Mammoth is a possibility and he doesn’t rule out future acquisitions.
“We don’t rule anything out because we’re not here to maintain the status quo. If the industry needs more space, we won’t sit on the sidelines like some waterboy. We’ll be like a halfback that wants to get out there and carry the ball.”
Bosa, who is currently developing new condo projects in B.C. and California, said entering the film business hasn’t been the fulfillment of some life-long dream but he’s always up for a new challenge.
“It wasn’t a dream or anything but you never stop thinking about new avenues,” he said. “The mind has to travel.”
Bosa feels that despite a rising Canadian dollar, the B.C. film and television production sector still has a bright future and expects business to pick up as the popularity of reality television declines. He noted the B.C. Interior lumber industry has thrived, despite a rising Canadian currency, and feels the film industry can do the same by providing a great workforce and by being creative and competitive.
Clausen said the B.C. industry dipped in 2004 when the province lost business to Ontario, which extended tax credits that were not offered in B.C. But he said business returned when the B.C. government matched Ontario’s move and expects 2006 to be a strong year for film and television production in the province.
Bosa said the film industry is extremely mobile and doesn’t have to be based in any particular location.
“I’m not saying you have to give the shop away to keep them here but you have to pay attention to what’s going on in other places,” he said. “If somebody is giving something away and you want to compete, you have to be up to it.”
But despite his best intentions, Bosa said he’s not going to sit around and lose piles of money if the film industry retrenches in the future and he’s left with vacant studios on his hands.
“I’m not going to lie,” he said. “If that happens, then I might have to visit the mayor and talk about rezoning the site. But our intention is to play a major role in this industry and we think we have a great future.”
Mussatto said he believes Bosa is in the film industry for the long term.
“I take him at his word — Nat Bosa is a very straight shooter,” he said. “He’s going to give it a great go.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
