Sony Pictures Television and Tribune Studios pre-Civil War television series Underground will complete visual effects work in Queensland.
Underground centres on a group of slaves who plan a daring 600 miles’ escape from a Georgia plantation to freedom, aided along the way by a secret abolitionist couple running a station on the Underground Railroad, as they evade those tasked with bringing them back, dead or alive.
Screen Queensland chief executive, Tracey Vieira, said the Post, Digital and Visual Effects (PDV) Attraction Grant, which helped lure the project to Queensland, was designed to showcase the state's talent and build a level playing field for local practitioners competing against other Australian states.
"To give them a competitive edge in a competitive global marketplace," she said.
"Producers are incentivised to experience first-hand what we have to offer in Queensland and they also benefit from the federal 30 per cent PDV Offset."
Earlier this year Queensland won the big budget production The Age of Adaline starring Harrison Ford and Blake Lively.
It was produced by Lakeshore Entertainment and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.
This was on the back of new research showing the Australian screen industry experienced a big increase in the PDV work from $155 million in 2013-14 to $214 million in 2014-15.
Viera said Queensland had continued on its trajectory of growth in international and domestic productions as we continue to build a successful film, television and digital content industry in a shifting screen landscape.
"Our end goal is to position Queensland as an attractive one-stop shop for productions from pre- principal- PDV stages in a production’s life-cycle.’
Underground stars Aldis Hodge, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Christopher Meloni, Alano Miller, and Jessica de Gouw.
The series is created and written by Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, who serve as executive producers, alongside Akiva Goldsman of Weed Road Pictures; Tory Tunnell and Joby Harold of Safehouse Pictures; and John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Stiklorius of Get Lifted.