A new film and TV studio business, Versa Studios, has launched in the U.K. with the opening of a new production facility — and the first clients have already walked through the doors.
Versa London boasts a 10,000 square-foot studio with an additional 20,000 square feet of space for production galleries, dressing rooms, green rooms and production offices.
The studio opened its doors in November to its first productions, including upcoming Simon Cowell-devised show “Walk the Line,” a co-production between Syco Entertainment and Lifted Entertainment (part of ITV Studios).
As well as the convenient location in West London, which has links to both central London and Heathrow airport, the studio offers broadcasting facilities and exclusive occupancy, ensuring ease of monitoring and control for COVID-19 safety purposes.
Versa Studios aims to become one of the key production facility players in the U.K. with a network of major studio facilities spanning 330,000 square feet and, to that end, is already planning to launch sites in Leeds and Manchester in 2022.
Like Versa London, all the sites will have close links to city centers, offer top tech and have been planned with COVID-19 safety protocols in mind.
“We are very happy to be opening Versa London Studios and with such a high profile show as ‘Walk the Line’ to kick us off,” said Versa’s executive director, Charlie Ingall, in a statement. “Our aim was to build best in class facilities, serviced by experienced operating teams and I believe we have achieved that. We have an expert operational team here who have all contributed to making ‘Walk the Line’ a successful production and we look forward to building on this with productions already lined up to use this world-class facility.”
“Our future vision is a network of studios across the UK to meet the growing demand for content whilst ensuring we maintain the highest quality behind the Versa brand. It’s been a tough 18 months for the industry, but we are proud to be at the forefront of providing the much-needed COVID secure facilities that film and TV needs in order to bounce back bigger and stronger than ever before.”