thecallsheet — May 2026
Last month we said September was shaping up as the peak of the year. That still holds. In the meantime, the pipeline is building — slowly — and there are productions moving across the UK. The list of 30 (10 filming, 10 pre-production, 10 development) is below if you want to go straight there.
Hosting a networking event in June for production companies and senior crew from recent training courses. It’s invite-only for attendees of our training courses.
If you’re interested in sponsoring the event: info@thecallsheet.co.uk
It is still quiet for many, but worth noting how much work is happening — just not here. The Forsytes Series 3 is shooting in Prague; Seasons 1 and 2 were in the UK. Three Body Problem Series 2 and 3 are back-to-back in Budapest. The Age of Innocence was in Prague and Spain. John Wick is in Budapest. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters prequel is in Prague. The Assassin 2 is in Malta. Apple TV’s Berlin Noir is, to be fair, in Berlin.
Foxfinder — an English-language Film4/BFI-backed film from London-based Rabbit Track Pictures, starring Owen Cooper — is filming in Bavaria.
The cold reality is competitive tax credits and lower costs elsewhere. Saudi Arabia have introduced a 60% tax credit. Several senior people we speak to regularly wonder aloud whether the UK is pricing itself out of the market, or whether broadcasters and streamers have shrunk budgets so far that they look overseas more when setting up a production. Probably both. Probably also just the market balancing out. None of which is particularly helpful if the phone hasn’t rung in a while.
Last month we asked why Marlow Film Studios is still going ahead when supply and demand of UK studio space is relatively balanced and many stages around London sit empty this summer. The local planning rejection was overruled at government level. Construction proceeds.
On a completely unrelated note — purely as a passing observation, with no connection whatsoever to any proposed studios in Buckinghamshire — data centres! The big tech companies are building them fast, paying handsomely, and making excellent long-term tenants. They pay considerably more than an itinerant film or TV production, with none of the gaps. Data centres need three things: a substantial energy supply, a water source for cooling, and a secure site. Now, where were we...
The proposed Marlow Studios site will be secured and sits adjacent to the River Thames as well as being surrounded by lakes. Following the planning approval, Marlow subsequently applied for permission to build their own electrical substation on the land. There’s also a new substation under construction at Uxbridge Moor, roughly 15 miles away.
The four-person leadership team includes Lord Camoys (hereditary peer, Foreign Office background); Simon Barrowcliff (40 years at CBRE, whose specialisms include data centres); and John Hartz of Inflexion, a private equity firm focused on technology and business investment.
The question is straightforward enough: on what promise of business — from which broadcaster, studio or streamer — is a £750m build on 18 sound stages viable, when Disney is at Pinewood, Warners/HBO at WBSL, Universal at Sky Elstree, Apple at OMA, Amazon expanding Bray, and Netflix at Shepperton and Longcross? That’s before you get to Shinfield, Garden, Ealing, Eastbrook, Elstree and 3 Mills, all of which currently have availability.
For more on UK studio supply and demand, this new LSH report is worth your time: Sites, Camera, Action!
Last month, Warner Bros. shareholders voted through the Paramount deal — but voted down CEO David Zaslav’s exit package. The golden parachute didn’t land. Don’t feel too sorry for him: he was compensated $165m in 2025. The merger now works its way through US and EU regulators; with the UK outside the EU and dependent on inward production, there’s limited leverage here.
For people who work for WB in the UK, the Paramount combination is considerably less alarming than a Netflix acquisition would have been. Paramount’s UK team is small and largely complementary to WB’s — far fewer duplicate roles.
ITV and Sky, meanwhile — the Ross and Rachel of broadcasters — are still in talks. If that deal happens, there will be significant ‘synergies’, which is to say job losses, as the Osterley operation won’t need to duplicate much of what ITV already does.
Over 1,400 actors, directors and filmmakers signed letters opposing the Paramount/WB merger. Many of those same voices have been raising concerns about theatrical windows. Greta Gerwig has secured a 49-day theatrical window for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew (shot at Shepperton), and filmmakers including Gerwig, Michaela Coel and Emerald Fennell are among those turning down Netflix overtures to protect theatrical and back-end ownership. Netflix — with residuals deals, advertising and growing theatrical commitments — is starting to look increasingly like the studios it once disrupted.
Netflix also launched thenetflixeffect.com last week — an interactive breakdown of their economic and cultural impact. The numbers are eye-watering and their UK footprint and impact should not be understated.
TNT Sports (owned by WBD) has confirmed that the Champions League final will not be free to air for the first time since 1992. Quite possibly the most short-sighted decision imaginable. Football fans have reached breaking point with the cost of multiple subscriptions, and this won’t help stem the rapid increase in dodgy firesticks and illegal streaming. Read Adam Leventhal’s piece on the subject on The Athletic.
Five years after the Noel Clarke scandal, CIISA — the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority — is finally launching its anti-bullying hotline, going live in September. The question is whether people will actually use it.
Without relitigating the whole story: it was frankly bizarre that a BAFTA lifetime achievement award went to then 45-year-old Clarke in the first place (only 12 years after winning the BAFTA for Rising Star)*, and it took victims going to a national newspaper before the award was recalled. That’s not how the industry should work. Noel Clarke denies all wrongdoing.
The Film and TV Charity introduced a support line in 2018. It received 109 calls about bullying in 2024/25. That’s 109 too many — but also tiny compared to the scale of the industry.
The key difference with CIISA’s line is that it’s a legally recognised whistleblowing body under UK law, meaning those under NDA are protected.
The honest perception among many crew members is that reporting to HR is not their default instinct. And to the company heads reading this — thank you for subscribing — the crew probably won’t tell you this directly, despite the HR number being on the call sheet.**
What we hear:
• “HR is there to protect the company, not the freelancer.”
• “I did complain. The person was too important to the production. They got a slap on the wrist and carried on.”
• “They were fired off one job and back on the lot Monday on another production — same company.”
Many excellent HR professionals in film and HETV tear their hair out hearing this, because they genuinely want to help and can’t if people don’t come forward.
CIISA can investigate, make recommendations, mediate and set benchmarks. The strength of the system is cross-production pattern detection — poor behaviour dealt with in-house leaves no trace elsewhere. A legally protected body can spot patterns across multiple productions. That’s potentially a game-changer.
The weakness is that CIISA has no enforcement powers — implementation is left to the industry bodies themselves, which may bring us back to square one. The Gregg Wallace case is instructive: the first allegations date to 2012. Wallace denies all wrongdoing. But the timeline alone illustrates why “I did complain. The person was too important to the production” is such a familiar refrain.
*The average age of BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award from the last 25 years is 71, winners include Martin Scorsese, Helen Mirren, Ridley Scott.
**Which Band 4 production put an HR number on all their call sheets — a good move — only for the number to be for Santander Bank?
Three updates worth flagging:
• Broken Turnaround Campaign — BECTU is pushing hard and it deserves full crew support. Costume, make-up, ADs and locations are repeatedly asked to break legal turnaround. Everyone knows someone who has fallen asleep at the wheel as a direct result. The burden of the schedule should not fall on exhausted departments.
• The new AD rate card has been published. Click HERE
• BECTU and The Rough Assembly are going back into negotiations with PACT for post production covering HETV, Comedy and Major Motion Pictures over £30m.
In February, Time’s Up UK and the Black Beauty Roster announced the All Textures Certificate — a qualification for hair and make-up professionals working with global majority cast members, designed to tackle on-set discrimination. A very good idea.
We’re hearing that one producer recently told a job candidate that without the ATC they wouldn’t be considered for the role. The producer may find that difficult to enforce — the certificate doesn’t appear to exist yet. Announced in February 2026, there is currently no course, no qualification, and neither Time’s Up UK nor the Black Beauty Roster responded to our emails and messages. One of the key names on the original press release has apparently already stood down from the steering committee.
If you know differently — if the course is happening and we’ve missed it — please tell us. At the moment it looks like a launch without the substance. We’d genuinely like to be proved wrong.
NI Screen launched their new four-year strategy with The Full Picture. A whopping £447m returned to the local economy — for every £1 spent, £8 goes back. They beat their target by £35m, developed the workforce and delivered Blue Lights, Derry Girls and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Remarkable, given two of those years were lost to strikes and the slowdown.
A key part of the new plan is Studio Ulster — the vision of Declan Keeney, Co-Founder and CEO of a £72m, 75,000 sq ft commercial virtual production studio at Belfast Harbour Studios. At a dinner we attended with Keeney last year, he was confident the next wave of virtual production will surpass all expectations. At that cost, it needs to.
The first HETV drama to shoot there is First Woman — a Mammoth Screen ITV production set partly in space, starring Andrea Riseborough and Ashley Walters, a Band 2 drama that has benefitted from an NI government incentive. Filming started 20th April. It’s in the production list below.
Apple TV’s Your Friends and Neighbours, starring Jon Hamm, popped into London for a week at the start of May — too quick to make the production list, but keep an eye out for the capital in the next series.
Something is in development that we can’t name yet — a live-action film based on a much-loved item of UK food folklore. When we can say more, we will.
Do you listen to The Rest is Entertainment? Watch Sherwood or Dear England? Then you probably already care about the future of the BBC. Marina Hyde and James Graham OBE appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee yesterday (Tuesday 19th May) — eloquent and passionate on how central the BBC is to our culture and shared sense of society. Worth an hour of your time: CMS Committee YouTube
Congratulations to the team behind Hustle and Run, winner of best short documentary — and particularly to producer Sarah Conlan at Just So Productions. Watch the acceptance speech here.
Fifteen years ago, thecallsheet launched. The first job we filled directly through the site was a Runner role at a company called Just So. The person who got that job was Sarah Conlan. From first job to a BAFTA feels like a good moment for a change — we’re winding down the old thecallsheet.co.uk website and relaunching with a new site focused on training and research. Watch this space.
Absolute Post and their in-house animation studio Blind Pig have sadly closed, leaving a large number of exceptionally talented people out of work. If you’re hiring, please take a look at the available talent: spreadsheet here.
We are working with Stephen Follows on a project looking at how location owners, film offices, councils and locations teams work together — and where that relationship could be better. If you work in locations, it takes three minutes and is anonymous. Results will be published freely: forms.gle/SkqM3qTdHKqggbrq7
Emily Russell leaves Bad Wolf and joins Mammoth Screen as Director of Production. Ronnie Castillo steps down after 14 years. Laura Burrows steps into Barry Ryan’s shoes as the new Head of Production at The Ink Factory; Barry is now at Working Title. Oliver Jones is the new Senior Commissioner for UK Scripted at Amazon. Panavision has closed its Cardiff branch.
Former BFI Film Fund chief Mia Bays heads up the new UK Dogme programme — a set of filmmaking rules designed to purify the form, in the tradition of the original Danish Dogme 95 movement. For the best example, watch the Palme d’Or and BAFTA-nominated Festen (The Celebration).
Rosie Dias — Production Manager, trainer and colleague — completed the London Marathon last month, less than a year after having her second child. Congratulations to our Mighty Rosie.
Talking Point have unveiled their new website — a snapshot of the excellent work Helen Johnson does for the art department and the wider industry: talkingpointfilm.co.uk
• Treasure Island (Tenerife)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4
• Kennedy — wrapping soon
• How to Train Your Dragon 2 (live-action remake)
• Blue Lights Series 4 — wraps end of month
• The Diplomat Series 4 — UK shoot complete, unit now in Italy
The Cage — BBC (5 × 60). Tony Schumacher is another brilliant writer from that hotbed of Scouse talent — Alan Bleasdale, Jimmy McGovern, Frank Cottrell Boyce. Great script, beautifully acted and directed, excellent locations around Liverpool. Watch on BBC iPlayer. Director Al Mackay’s first job in film was chaperoning an 11-year-old Thomas Turgoose on This Is England; his next directorial outing is in the production list below. Michael Socha, in a Guardian interview for The Cage, was asked about a possible 20-year This Is England reunion. Those rumours are circulating. Nothing concrete yet.
Saturday Night Live UK — Sky. Most people assumed it wouldn’t work. Most sketches are good, some are excellent, and guest hosts like Hannah Waddingham dive in so wholeheartedly that it’s genuinely joyful. Whether your era was SMTV, TFI Friday or Tiswas — there’s just something about live TV. Emma Sidi and George Fouracres standout performers. Renewed for a second series, returning in the autumn.
thecallsheet is an independent industry newsletter. The information contained in this issue is gathered from a combination of publicly available sources and confidential industry intelligence. Where information is unconfirmed, this is indicated in the text.
The production list is compiled using Production Radar, an early-intelligence monitoring system. Productions are included based on verified or credibly sourced information. Stage, location and crew details reflect the position at time of publication and are subject to change.
Nothing in this newsletter constitutes legal, financial or employment advice. thecallsheet accepts no liability for decisions made on the basis of information published here.
This newsletter is intended for subscribers only. Forwarding or reproducing any part of this issue without permission is not permitted.
© thecallsheet 2026. All rights reserved.
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The Bay – Series 6 ITV Crime Drama returns. ITV (Tall Story Pictures) Producer: Joanne Dunleavy Nelson · Line Producer: Liv Taylor · Director: Brian O’Malley
Elden Ring Alex Garland writes and directs an adaptation of the game with world-building by George R.R. Martin. A24 · Sky Studios Elstree Director: Alex Garland · Producer: Matthew Penry Davey · Line Producer: Charlie Reed
War Legal thriller created by George Kay. Stars Sienna Miller and Dominic West. Sky & HBO (New Pictures / Observatory Pictures) · OMA Studios Producer: Jyoti Fernandes · Producer: Laurie Borg · Producer: Debbie Burton
Grace – Series 7 John Simm returns as Roy Grace in the Brighton-set crime drama. ITV (Tall Story Pictures) · Brighton · From 27 April 2026 Producer: Kiaran Murray-Smith · Line Producer: Madelaine Leech · Line Producer: Alex Gibb
First Day on Earth Michaela Coel comedy-drama. Coel writes, directs and stars. BBC / HBO Producer: Adanna Adams · Director: Sam Miller · Writer/Director/Producer: Michaela Coel
Black Palace 19th-century drama about a secret affair between a prince and a lady-in-waiting. Tempo Productions Director: Nick Hamm · Costume Designer: Joanna Eatwell · Producer: Piers Tempest
Youth A 50-year-old divorcee searches for sex and love whilst juggling caring for her ailing parents and her adult son. Sharon Horgan stars. HBO (Merman) DoP: Korsshan Schlauer · Director: John Hamburg · Producer: Sharon Horgan
Luther 2 Idris Elba returns. Filming from February at Longcross. Netflix / BBC Films · Longcross Director: Jamie Payne · Writer: Neil Cross · Producer: Gina Carter
First Woman A race to find a missing astronaut. Heavy virtual production shoot at Studio Ulster, Belfast. ITV (Mammoth Screen) Line Producer: Julia Stannard · Producer: Matt Cooper · Producer: Huey Kerrigan
Our Only Suspect Alex and Beth appear to have the perfect suburban life. They don’t. ITV (Red Planet) · London Production Designer: Matthew Button · Producer: Joe Darby · Director: Farren Blackburn
This issue tracks 30 productions currently in development, prep or filming across UK film and HETV. Production Radar is monitoring many more — not yet publicly available, but register your interest by emailing me on matt@thecallsheet.co.uk
This list is for subscribers only and is not intended to be shared.
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