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Albuquerque's new massive movie studio may have a massive name as a tenant.

Sony Pictures Imageworks, an Academy Award-winning digital film production studio known for its work on films like "Superman Returns" and the "Spider-Man" films, plans to hire about 100 people at a production plant within the new Albuquerque Studios, according to a report Friday in the Los Angeles Times.

It's news that - should it come to fruition - rounds out the state's palette of high-profile film production offerings, local industry experts said.

"You can do the whole soup-to-nuts thing here," John Hendry, business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 480 based in Santa Fe, said of the expanding New Mexico film landscape. "I think people still don't believe this is for real. At what point are you going to say, `Wow.' "

Officials with Imageworks, based in Culver City, Calif., declined to comment when reached by The Tribune on Friday, saying it was "premature."

Also declining to comment were Melissa Milam, a spokeswoman for the state Economic Development Department, which includes the State Film Office, and Jeremy Hariton, executive director of Albuquerque Studios - a full-service film production facility that opened last month at Mesa del Sol.

According to the report, the proposed facility would eventually employ about 300 visual effects technicians and computer animators in a 112,000-square-foot building.

But the deal, according to the newspaper, hinges upon a bill now pending in the Legislature that would make permanent an existing film production tax rebate incentive. The state offers a 25 percent rebate on all direct production expenditures, including New Mexico labor, that are subject to state taxes.

Imageworks has already forged a partnership in Albuquerque. The company recently made the University of New Mexico the 10th campus in its Imageworks Professional Academic Excellence program. IPAX, as it's called, is a program to educate faculty so they can pass rapidly evolving digital filmmaking knowledge onto their students.

UNM is developing a film and digital media program, led by the university's fine arts and engineering schools, said Christopher Mead, dean of the College of Fine Arts.

If Imageworks does come, "one of the reasons they would come here is that they would have a program training people for that industry," Mead said.