A group of unnamed investors led by Ryan Millsap, who sold Blackhall Studios last year for $120 million, have purchased 1,500 acres in Newton County to shoot productions for an upcoming action-oriented streaming service.
The story broke on Bisnow and Millsap confirmed the news with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday.
“This is the kind of space we need to fly in Blackhawk helicopters and drive Humvees at speed,” he told Bisnow. “We have lakes and swamps and rivers and forests and fields and hills and dales. That’s the nice thing about 1,500 acres.”
Millsap announced his streaming service Blackhall Americana last fall, which he said will focus on original escapist action movies and drama series along the lines of “Red Dawn,” “Commando,” “Black Hawk Down” and “John Wick.”
He said is still raising money for Blackhall Americana and hopes to have contracts with well-known producers ready to announce within 90 days.
The land is off Elks Club Road in Covington about 40 miles east of downtown Atlanta. The purchase price for the land is $14 million.
“It’s a great piece of property and there’s a big movie presence already in the county,” Millsap told the AJC Saturday. (Covington is already home to Three Ring Studios and Triple Horse Studios.)
When Millsap sold Atlanta’s Blackhall Studios last year to Commonwealth Asset Management, a big private equity firm in Los Angeles, he was able to continue to use the Blackhall name for his planned streaming service.
Blackhall Studios has nine soundstages and has been home to TV series and films such as “Godzilla: King of Monsters,” “Venom,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” HBO’s “Lovecraft Country” and Amazon Prime’s “The Tomorrow War”
He hopes to begin film production on the new site as early as the end of summer using the outdoor space. He said he will build indoor soundstages that should be usable within 18 months.
The 1,500 acres is more than three times larger than Tyler Perry Studios property in southwest Atlanta and twice as large as the sprawling Trilith Studios in Fayetteville in Fayette County, where many Marvel movies such as “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Endgame” and several Disney+ series (”Wandavision,” “Loki”) have been shot.
Millsap said he has also purchased another 1,000 acres for separate industrial development not far from there. Rivian, the electric vehicle manufacturer, also recently announced plans to build a $5 billion plant in the area as well.
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