Saint John producer Greg Hemmings says he hopes to leverage Revival‘s success to prove New Brunswick’s film industry can compete.
Following Revival’s debut on Netflix U.S. and Crave Canada last week, Hemmings said he and other companies in the industry are working with the government to bring larger projects to the province.
“The Revival project was a pilot project to see if we could pull something off this big in the province; we proved that we could,” he said. “Now the industry is working with the province to make sure we’ve got an ecosystem that can continue to bring in larger projects like this.”
Revival is a horror comic book series that’s set in Wasau, a city in central Wisconsin, and delves into the chaos that ensues when the dead return to life.
The narrative follows Detective Dana Cypress and her sister, Em, who has been brought back to life. As they investigate the circumstances surrounding Em’s murder, they encounter significant religious, moral, and social themes, revealing a disturbing link to her revival.
The adaptation of the comic created by Tim Seely and Mike Norton was filmed and produced in the Saint John region by Hemmings’ production company Hemmings House Pictures, in partnership with Toronto-based Blue Ice Pictures in 2024.
The 10-episode show aired on the Syfy channel before debuting on Netflix and Crave.
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Hemmings said having a show produced by his company on Netflix — the world’s largest streaming platform — is a huge milestone for his company.
To date, the show has also been the largest production in New Brunswick, with about $10 million spent in the province and 600 local crew members hired.
Hemmings said the industry is hoping to score a tax credit — like Newfoundland and Labrador’s film and video tax credit — that could create more incentives for companies to produce more content in the province.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s credit provides local film projects with a rate of 40 per cent of eligible labour costs but may not exceed 25 per cent of production costs.
While New Brunswick offers grants to support film projects, Hemmings said more reliable incentives are needed to make the province competitive.
“The provinces that are thriving have reliable, predictable, and significant size incentive programs so they can take projects of the size of Revival, and other shows like from Disney and Netflix,” he explained.
Hemmings said the province was a great partner in the production of Revival and that they understood the investment and the economic return a project this size brought to New Brunswick.
However, he said the question now is how to replicate this success.
Hemmings added that there is still some work to be done to figure out how to deploy “significant funds” in the current year’s mandate.
“It’s a pretty significant shift in how the province allocates budget dollars to make a thumb and tooth drive, but the positive impacts, if they do it right, are incredible financially,” he said.
Following Revival’s release, Hemmings said his company has landed larger projects, including filming in China, producing a major CBC documentary, and potentially shooting another feature film in the Saint John area this fall.
“We’ve been enjoying a good run for the last couple of years,” he said.
The new feature films follow Hemmings’ first film, What We Dreamed Then, which is now also streaming on Crave.
Hemmings added that he hopes to bring the same opportunities to other companies in the province, and said he will continue to leverage Revival’s success to help better position the industry in New Brunswick.
