To many in metro Atlanta, Effingham County is a two-minute blur on the endless drive down I-16 between Macon and the Georgia coast.
Blink and you’ve missed the county’s lone exit, a country two-lane where minivans and SUVs tangle with logging trucks and farm tractors. But behind what is now a pine curtain along the interstate and Old River Road, a film producer wants to build the largest movie studio in the country.
“We are stoking the flames of Georgia’s film industry,” Effingham County Commission Chairman Wendell Kessler said at a ceremonial groundbreaking on Thursday for Medient Studios.
Hollywood has swooped into towns across the state in the past few years, lured by rich state incentives. But nowhere could Tinseltown’s touch be felt quite as dramatically as in Effingham County if — and it’s still a big if — Medient Studios’ audacious plans pan out.
The Medient project site is about 20 miles west of downtown Savannah near a crossroads with a post office called Meldrim. It is one of several studio projects proposed in Georgia.
Medient’s plan is decidedly more speculative than some. Financial filings show a tiny company with little ready cash or revenue. But executives say they have partnerships to create a production machine for sci-fi and horror movies, along with video game and television work.
The company promises to hire at least 1,000 people in its first phase, and many are expected to be locals.
Developers envision the campus eventually becoming a tourist draw, and renderings look like it was plucked out of Oz, with a leaf-shaped amphitheater with seating for thousands and plans for interactive gaming for fans.
It’s a striking contrast to the area now — a blue-collar corner of the county, sprinkled with mobile homes and metal-roofed bungalows.
Hotels and restaurants in this part of Effingham are scarce. So are jobs.
“We don’t have anything over here. We hope there’s opportunity,” said Tammy Daniels, 52, who lives within a mile of the site.
The company says it will begin shooting feature films there when the first studio buildings are ready by the end of March. Thursday’s ceremony marked a milestone, but hurdles remain. Most important, Medient needs to produce steady content the public will buy.
“Eventually we will be judged on the movies and video games we make,” Medient Chairman and CEO Manu Kumaran said.
Ready for its close-up
Effingham residents aren’t the type to get star struck, said Beverly Poole, curator of the museum in the county seat of Springfield, 20 miles to the north.
Before Medient, other films like the Jim Caviezel historical drama “Savannah,” released this month, shot scenes in the county’s historic courthouse. The Robert Redford-directed Civil War drama, “The Conspirator,” also was partly filmed in Effingham.
The museum, housed in an old jail, and the historical society’s assembled village of old buildings are frequent backdrops for productions from Savannah College of Art and Design students, Poole said.
Though most of Medient’s shooting is expected to take place on campus, Poole said Effingham has the look for anything from Colonial times to today.
The area was settled not long after Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe founded Savannah in 1733. About 130 years later, Gen. William Sherman’s armies tramped through Effingham on their march to the sea.
“If there’s anything to do with history, this is the perfect county,” she said.
Still, Effingham County is a far cry from Hollywood. There’s not a Bentley dealer for 200 miles.
The county of about 50,000 people is part Savannah bedroom community, but also a place where timber is still big business.
The area around the future movie campus is among its least developed areas, and unincorporated Meldrim is perhaps best known for a 1959 rail disaster that killed 23.
Residents and county officials hope Medient’s campus will change that.
Medient’s first phase, if successful, would make the company the third-largest employer behind the county school system and Georgia-Pacific, which makes paper products at a plant there.
“I don’t get excited by much, but if it’s anything like Hollywood, it’ll be a trip,” said Danny Bell, 39, a paper mill worker picking up lottery tickets at Rudra Food Mart, just northwest of the future movie campus.
Though Bell said he’s happy to see jobs come, he’s likely to move, fearful of the noise and traffic Medient might bring. Many of his friends and neighbors are thinking of listing their houses, too, he said.
But Daniels, who lives on the other side of I-16 from the Medient site, said she welcomes celebrities and doubts her family will move.
“(Celebrities) are just as human as we are. They’ve got more money and they’re on TV more, but they’re just like us,” she said.
Plans a reach?
Given its size and apparently meager finances, Medient’s plans are bold. This is no Pinewood Studios, the established UK production company that recently started construction of facilities in Fayette County.
The $90 million estimated cost of the first phase of Medient’s project is 45 times more than the company’s revenue for the first six months of this year.
Medient lost $121,000 in the second quarter of this year, after squeezing out a $561,000 profit in the first quarter. It has a little more than $50,000 in cash on hand, according to the last quarterly report. Medient recently announced it obtained a $5 million credit line.
The $90 million first phase will largely be financed by partners, including the general contractor and a visual effects company, Kumaran says. Effingham is financing $10 million in land costs.
Once it gets up and running, Medient says, constant shooting and eliminating down time will hold down costs, and the company can also sell state tax credits it generates for cash, providing another revenue stream.
The plan calls for later phases to develop housing for 5,000 on campus, plus retail, hotels and medical facilities. The project, the company says, will be powered mostly by solar and wind sources. Combustion engines will be banned on site.
“We like to say ‘We’re going to do to Hollywood what the Japanese did to Detroit,’” Jake Shapiro, the head of Medient’s music subsidiary, said as he drove reporters on a tour of the campus in a Land Rover.
The total project, which would build out over several years, is valued at more than $300 million. The Effingham County Industrial Development Authority also could issue up to $300 million in bonds that will be backed by the company, not taxpayers, the agency’s director said.
The company is also getting various tax incentives, infrastructure work and a $3 million state grant should it fulfill its job creation promises.
Local officials expressed few doubts about Medient. Rick Lott, executive director of the county’s chamber of commerce, hailed Medient executives’ experience in producing and financing scores of movies between them.
“It’s very clear (Kumaran) has a solid vision. Every time I hear him speak he doesn’t waver,” Lott said.
