$90M movie studio promises Hollywood jobs for Georgia | Online Athens

MELDRIM — From “Forrest Gump” to an upcoming “SpongeBob SquarePants” sequel, a long list of Hollywood movies have been filmed on location in coastal Georgia. Now a production company setting up shop west of Savannah says it will make movies full time at a sprawling studio complex planned off Interstate 16.

Medient Studios Inc. broke ground last week on a 1,550-acre tract in Effingham County once used by timber companies to grow and harvest pine trees. Medient promises to build a $90 million studio campus that will operate as a film factory, churning out six to eight feature films a year. Everything from screenwriting and principal photograph to soundtrack recording and special effects will be handled onsite.

It’s a plan that calls for ambitious growth for a company with just 22 employees and less than $53,000 in the bank as of its last filing with government regulators. Medient is pushing to finish its first soundstage by March so it can get to work shooting its first, as yet unnamed, movie with about 500 employees. Within five years the studio plans to finish its production facilities and employ about 1,200 workers.

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