'Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire'

Source: Sony

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’

The UK’s vacant Winnersh Film Studios is on track to re-open, after Luxembourg and London-based investment firm SCIO Capital secured a 30-year lease for the studios.

The lease was granted from Frasers Property, the owners of Winnersh Triangle, after the council approved plans to knock the Reading site down in April of this year. The studio had been shut since April 2024.

Winnersh had housed film productions such as Sony’s Ghostbusters: A Frozen Empire and George Clooney’s The Boys In The Boat for Amazon MGM Studios. It was operated by Stage 50, which entered administration in April 2024, citing the “detrimental impact” of 2023’s Hollywood strikes.

SCIO Capital – which was originally the senior secured lender to Winnersh when run by Stage 50 –  took full ownership of the studio when Stage 50 went into administration.

Former Stage 50 employees Laurence McCormack and Terry Winter are now shepherding its return. The studio will be known as Parkside Studios Winnersh, with plans to operate on a smaller footprint, but still appealing to a range of film and high-end TV productions.

Stage 50 also operated film and TV studios in Farnborough and Wycombe. Farnborough was taken over by events business Farnborough International. SCIO Capital also now owns Wycombe Film Studios in High Wycombe, which is under development, where McCormack is operations director and Winter is head of construction.

The Wycombe site has faced uncertainty. The studios won planning permission in 2023 for eight sound stages, prior to Stage 50 entering administration. It currently has a sound stage and large backlot open for hire. In October 2024, a planning application was put in on behalf of SCIO Capital to build a data centre on the site.

McCormack confirmed to Screen that the Wycombe studio continues to run in its current set up, with no further news on future plans at this time.

Topics