Frank Coraci's Around The World In 80 Days is expected to generate an economic 'effect' of 4,000% on the Euros 500,000 production funding granted by the regional Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg, with turnover of Euros 20m in the region.

The $110m-plus Walden Media production spent eight weeks shooting at the Babelsberg Studios and at locations in Berlin and Potsdam since the end of April and will now be moving to the town of Goerlitz on the German-Polish border for five days of shooting from June 23-27.

The Euros 500,000 backing for the film from the Leipzig-based Mitteldeutsche Medienfoerderung is expected itself to create an 'effect' of 300% with Euros 1.5m being spent by the production in Goerlitz.

In total, half of the production budget - i.e. around Euros 55m - will be spent in Germany, which compares favourably with another big budget production, Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy At The Gates, which left around Euros 50m of its Euros 90m budget in the Berlin-Brandenburg region in 2000, with Euros 20m spent in the Babelsberg studios alone .

"Brandenburg, Berlin and Central Germany offer unique possibilities", 80 Days' German co-producer Henning Molfenter argues, "the locations are excellent, we can offer everything here apart from a South Seas panorama. This is shown not least by the fact that a film like Around The World In 80 Days will be shot completely here except for the South Seas. And the infrastructure with hotels, transport, restaurants and the large range of leisure activities are practically unbeatable.

"Pricewise, we can definitely undercut cities like Paris, London or Rome and, as for the East European competitors like Prague or Budapest, our competitiveness depends a lot on the respective project. And there the financial support of the regional funds - at whatever level - is a really essential factor for the [project] acquisition, for these monies help to compensate for disadvantages in competition on a European level and bring money - much more than the subsidy itself - into Germany."