A movie that hits cinemas nationwide today was inspired by Whitstable and written in Whitstable by a Whitstable director – then filmed in Northern Ireland.

The town missed out on hosting the cast and crew of Robot Overlords, which stars Sir Ben Kingsley and X Files beauty Gillian Anderson, to Belfast and the Isle of Man because Kent could not offer an ‘economic’ enough deal to director Jon Wright.

Sir Ben plays the human villain of the piece, who has designs on Gillian’s character, a brave mum who joins with some sparky kids to fight back against hulking robots who rule the streets and keep people locked in their homes.

The seed of the idea for a homegrown homage to the action adventure films of the 1980s, such as ET and The Goonies, first came to director Jon – who lives in Whitstable with his partner and son – in a dream, and he worked it up into a full-blown feature film with his co-writer, Mark Stay.

He said: “I’d say the location of the movie is inspired directly by Whitstable. Whitstable bears an uncanny resemblance to the town in the film.

"I was quite keen to shoot it in Whitstable because it would have meant a very short journey to work!”

Jon, who has previously directed the films Grabbers and Tormented, said: “My co-writer Mark and I sat in the Hotel Continental and wrote the scene in the middle of the movie, which is set in a seaside hotel, and we researched the different locations of the movie by wandering around Whitstable.”

However, when it came to filming, the town didn’t get a look-in because of what Jon perceives as a lack of a competitive film commission in Kent.

It was cheaper to take his cast and crew to Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man to shoot scenes at similar-looking towns.

“The reason we shot in Ireland and the Isle of Man is purely economic; they have very aggressive, capable film-funding boards or film commissions they invested in the movie.

"If Kent had a film commission, able to offer tax relief or invest in movies, then they would have people shooting in Kent, there’s no doubt about it,” said Jon.

"I was quite keen to shoot it in Whitstable because it would have meant a very short journey to work!" - director Jon Wright

“The reason that public money is spent on film-making is very simple economics; if you spend a certain amount of money bringing a film production to your area, they will spend a lot more when they get there.

“They hire local people to work on the production, they spend money in hotels and bars and restaurants – they spend a lot of money.

"So I would say to Kent, get a film commission. It will help the local economy.”

But Kent has so far had no luck in securing additional funding for such a film commission.

Gabrielle Lindemann, Kent film officer for Kent County Council, said: “We are aware that there are production funds in all the nations and some regions such as Yorkshire.

“Unfortunately, Kent has so far been unable to secure any central government funding to promote filming in the area.

"While we continue to explore options for potential funding, we have previously been advised that our location in the south east, proximity to London and relative wealth did not qualify for additional investment in the sector.

“Despite not having a production fund, the Kent Film Office has been very successful in securing filming for the county.

“In this financial year we generated over £6 million for the local economy and welcomed productions like Into The Woods, Wolf Hall, Call the Midwife, The Honourable Woman, and BBC’s The Hollow Crown among many others.”

Robot Overlords (12A) is in cinemas from today.

Read a full interview with Jon Wright in next week’s What’s On.