Alberta is known around the world as being the Canadian hub of the oil and gas industry and the host province of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, Calgary Stampede. Did you know that it is also home to a thriving television and film industry? Thanks to a plethora of talent and some of the world’s most beautiful scenery, Calgary and Alberta have been the backdrop to several Hollywood blockbusters.
Hollywood loves Alberta for a few different reasons and one of the most obvious is the beautiful scenery. In Alberta, film makers can take advantage of the majestic Rocky Mountains, vast prairies, and stunning boreal forests. You can catch a glimpse of Alberta’s beauty in movies like Brokeback Mountain and X2: XMen United.
Alberta is the perfect location for producers who are filming a period piece about the wild west. Small towns across the province and Heritage Park have provided an authentic backdrop to movies like The Assassination of Jesse James and Shanghai Noon.
For productions with a dinosaur theme, the badlands of Drumheller and the Royal Tyrrell Museum provide perfect scenery and props. The scenic Horseshoe Canyon can be seen in Unforgiven. Royal Tyrrell Museum has been featured in the wildly popular children’s program, Dino Dan.
The City of Calgary itself has been the set for many movies, mini-series, and made for TV movies including Superman III, Fubar, and the Bourne Legacy.
Currently, there are several exciting projects filming in Alberta. These include the television series Fargo, Heartland, Hell on Wheels, and upcoming film release The Revenant. Earlier this year, CBC published an article outlining the province’s plan to attract additional big budget productions and grow the film industry within Alberta. The province and the City of Calgary are working together to invest more than $15 million into a state of the art film studio.
Do you have dreams of stardom? Well, they might just come true in Calgary!