How Hungary became a filmmaking destination

Think of Academy Award-winning movies such as “Poor Things,” “Blade Runner 2049” and “The Brutalist” and you might assume they were made in Los Angeles.

But instead of being produced in California’s famous studios, they were all shot largely in one central European country: Hungary. Huge production complexes, a variety of land and cityscapes and generous incentives have made Hungary a hub for Hollywood.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Eddie Redmayne, Liam Hemsworth, Anne Hathaway and Dakota Fanning were all reportedly seen in Hungary’s capital Budapest and its surrounding areas this year.

Hungary has been involved with cinema since its earliest days. The Lumière brothers, makers of the cinematograph device, brought their invention to Budapest’s Grand Hotel Royal in 1896 — just months after its Paris debut — and had camera operators film landmarks in the city the same year.

When Budapest’s artists and writers saw the early movies they “lost their minds in a good way, and almost immediately started creating their own films,” according to movie director Justin Reardon, who runs production firm The Royal Budapest Film Company with his wife Barbara. The first Hungarian film staged for the screen was shot in 1901 on the rooftop of the Uránia, a Budapest palace that hosted science presentations, which is now a “cathedral”-like movie theater, he said.

Hungarians have also had an outsized influence on the American movie industry. Adolph Zukor, born in the then Austro-Hungarian empire, emigrated at 16 to the U.S., and in 1912 co-founded Paramount Pictures, while William Fox — born Vilmos Fried — was the Hungarian-American founder of the Fox Film Corporation that became Twentieth Century-Fox in 1935.

Actors Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tony Curtis, Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody have Hungarian roots, while Budapest-born Gábor Csupó founded a Hollywood studio that produced early seasons of “The Simpsons.”

With its grand architecture as well as areas that appear a little more gritty, Budapest has doubled for European cities such as Paris, Berlin and Rome in movies including “Evita,” “Max,” and “Inferno.”

“It’s got many different looks,” said producer Barbara Reardon. It’s also easy to get around, and international movie executives feel at home, she said. “Budapest is equipped with a little bit of everything. You can find your green juices and healthy salads … and a lot of studio heads and and actors, they like that,” she told CNBC by video call.