Guadalajara Content City Planned by Micelio Media Group as Jalisco Announces New Incentives 

MIAMI  — Spain’s Roots Group, the real estate developer behind Madrid Content City, the site of Netflix’s European Production Hub, unveiled Tuesday at Content Americas that it has put into development plans for a Guadalajara Content City, to built in Mexico’s second biggest city. 

The development will be channelled through the Micelio Media Group, Secuoya Studios’ joint venture with BTF Media founded by Ricardo Coeto and Francisco Cordero. 

Plans forms part of an ambitious build in Guadalajara’s arsenal of lures for the Mexican and international film-TV industry which was revealed by Jalisco governor Enrique Alfaro at Content Americas on Tuesday. 

These take in cash rebates and tax credits for production  Mexico’s first of any significance in years – and a venture capital fund to invest in studios and other industry infrastructure. 

Guadalajara Content City will include four soundstages, all 1,500 sq. meters (16,145 sq. feet) in size. The City will also take in a  20,000 sq. meter (215, 278 sq. feet) backlot, a unique feature for a Mexican studio complex, Roots argued in a written statement on Tuesday.

All in all, the complex will occupy more than 60,000 sq. meters (645,834 feet) of terrain, said Roots chair Raúl Berdonés.  

The Content City will also have four warehouses, each 700 sq. meters (7,534 sq. feet) in size, plus a post-production center, offices and, in line with Madrid Content City, a university for 2,000 students. 

Productions shot at the Guadalajara Content City may well be able to tap into the state of Jalisco’s shoot incentives unveiled by Alfaro. Start-up funding at Filma Jalisco, the public sector initiative for audio-visual runs for 2023 at $13.2 million, of which $5 million will be earmarked for incentives, said Alfaro. Exact caps and rates of deductions will be determined at a future date, he told Variety.  

Further measures take in income tax exertion and soft-credit financing lines for venture capital investment, he added. 

“No other state in Mexico has this direct production support,” said Alfaro, calling film and TV “of strategic interest in terms of future economic development.”

Punto Filma, one of the four pillars of Film Jalisco, will offer terrain for the construction of studios, said Xavier Orendáin De Obeso, Jalisco general co-ordinator of Growth and Economic Development.

Production costs in Guadalajara are 20% below the average in Mexico, 50% below Latin America’s, according to Filma Jalisco. 

The Content City will be built at a place just a two hour flight from Hollywood, Berdonés acknowledged. 

“We aim to attract big Hollywood productions. “With the talent in Mexico and its technicians, many of whom already work In Hollywood, all the stars align. Guadalajara Content City makes a lot of sense,” said Berdonés.

Titles which have shot in Jalisco state include the BTF Media produced “Centaur of the North” about legendary Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.