MUMBAI: Production house Liquid Noise Films North has secured funding of nine Hollywood-backed movies with a total budget of more than ?200 million across the North-East and North Yorkshire.

Locations including York, Newcastle, Durham City, the Tees Valley and North York Moors will form sets for films ranging from a ?26 million fantasy adventure to a ?35 million biopic of Captain James Cook‘s early life.

The films, to roll from September, are expected to feature lot of A-list actors and generate millions of pounds for the region‘s economy from film related tourism.

The Independent filmmakers, whose team includes Newcastle actor Craig Conway, bestselling novelist GP Taylor and North Yorkshire-raised producer and director duo Julian and Lionel Hicks, hope their North-East initiative will spark a long-term renaissance in the British film industry.

Both Julian and Hicks said that most of the productions were more than two-thirds financed by a mix of overseas and British investors including Los Angeles-based collective Finish Line Productions. Liquid Noise‘s long-term goal was to set up a self-sufficient studio in the region, they revealed.

A spokesman of Northern Film and Media said that this would transform the region‘s film industry if they all came to fruition as well as attracting crowds of tourists.

The films to be shot in the North-East and North Yorkshire include: X-Breed, Tersias, Fort Venus, Vardo, The Vampyre Quartet, Lenin Athletic and Jack D‘arc.