American actor Ben Affleck is moving north of the border to film his new action-thriller, Hypnotic, after filmmakers pulled the plug on shooting the movie in the U.S. due to COVID-19.

The decision was made because the U.S. couldn't offer the same level of safety and testing for COVID-19, according to Mark Gill, president and CEO of Solstice Studios.

"Not only was there nowhere in the U.S. where we could gather a hundred people or more … but there was no availability or certainty of availability of COVID tests and not nearly fast enough turnaround time with the lab results for those tests," said Gill in an interview with Postmedia on Sunday.

Gill added that Vancouver is a "world-class film city" that's "safer," which made the decision to switch locations pretty easy.

Hypnotic, which was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez and stars Ben Affleck, is set to begin production on Oct. 26. 

Affleck will play a detective who becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter. pic.twitter.com/krZcqiUuZX

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) August 24, 2020

Hypnotic was set to begin filming April 27 in California, but was swiftly shut down when the pandemic struck.

Filmmakers briefly considered heading to Austin, Texas, but ultimately decided to pack up and move to Hollywood North when cases in Texas began to skyrocket.

Things certainly aren't looking bad for film-lovers north of the border; Canada will also be getting new movie releases ahead of the U.S. for the first time in history.