Stars of the big and small screens helped pump almost £1.3 million into the Tayside and Fife economy last year.
New figures from TayScreen Scotland, the Dundee Contemporary Arts-based unit which is tasked with promoting the region as a shooting location to film and television production companies, said it had been a particular strong period for the industry north of the border.
The climactic scenes from the latest James Bond film Skyfall were filmed in Glencoe and Glen Etive in Perthshire, bringing superstars such as Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench to Scotland.
Other stars including Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman and Oscar winner Colin Firth have also visited Tayside and Fife in recent times as part of both Holywood and independent productions, while Dundee-born actor Brian Cox returned to his hometown to make the TV comedy series Bob Servant Independent.
While the publicity that visits by such high-profile names brings is music to the ears of the local tourist trade, the real cash is made through the various services that production crews use while filming on location.
“It is great for the local economy,” TayScreen Scotland’s Julie Craik said. “Projects can spend more than £30,000 a day on all kinds of local services, from hotels to catering, transport to toilets.”
She added: “In 2012 alone more than 50 productions came to the region, worth almost £1.3m and up 20% on 2011.
“Since the office started in 2002 there’s been production somewhere almost every week, with a total of more than 2,000 production days.”