#Dufferin Gate Studios Adds Toronto Soundstages in Post-Strikes Hollywood Bet

Dufferin Gate Studios has taken over the former Strategem Studios complex in east Toronto as the veteran studio operator places a bet on a return of major studios and streamers and their appetite for original content production post-Hollywood strikes.

The studio at 1510 Birchmount Road in Scarborough, with two giant 60 feet clear span stages and six in all, hosted shoots for Marvel’s Hawkeye and Paramount+’s Mayor of Kingstown.

The Stratagem Group, led by film financier Michael Cerenzie, has given way to Dufferin Gate signing a memorandum of understanding to become the exclusive film and TV operators for the facility and position itself to serve more foreign productions by major studios and streamers shooting in Toronto.   

Noel Phillips, general manager of Dufferin Gate, said the stages at 1510 Birchmount remain empty amid the Hollywood actors and writers strikes, but the studio operator has been received stepped-up enquiries, “hopefully indicating a sentiment change in terms of the strikes duration,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

Dufferin Gates has already been operating since 2022 a neighboring studio at 1550 Birchmount Road, where Hallmark’s The Way Home series has produced two seasons on twin stages. The two facilities on Birchmount Road, rebranded as the Birchmount Studio Hub, will have in all 240,000 square feet of production space over eight clear span soundstages and additional office and support facilities.

Dufferin Gate Studios operates soundstages and production space in six studios across Toronto that serve features, TV series, commercials and music videos. During the 1990s, the company was a major producer of TV movies for U.S. cable channels, especially Showtime Networks, before expanding its city-wide network as Hollywood producers increasingly came north to shoot exclusive originals on local stages.

Before the Hollywood strikes, studios in Ontario were booked solid as Los Angeles players like Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Warner Bros., Amazon, Paramount, Apple and AMC Networks chased stages amid the industry’s streaming wars to feed rising subscriber demand for original content.

But the labor action by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA has cast a shadow over the future demand by major studios and streamers for post-strike projects to be possibly shot in Canada.

The timing of the Hollywood strikes also came as major streamers were already being more selective and cost-conscious as they ordered original content and targeted profitability in a competitive and competitive business.