Apple is reportedly working on the acquisition of a massive amount of Hollywood studio space for exclusive production of new or existing Apple TV+ programming.
In a report published on Tuesday, Apple is said to be seeking "half a million square feet" to bolster its existing leases. The move is said to be proactive, with the company looking to lock down studios to prevent logjams in productions that can be held up looking for adequate filming space.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple may take what it can get. One of its sources it spoke to said that studios less than a half-million square feet aren't off the table, and a final square-foot count wasn't yet settled on.
The previous director of production planning at Netflix, Mike Mossalam, is attached to the project. Mosallam is one of Apple's real estate executives, central to the April expansion of the company's footprint in Culver City.
Competitors Amazon and Netflix are already well-entrenched. The report notes that Amazon has most of the Culver Studios area — a 14-acre studio where "Gone With the Wind" was shot. Netflix not only has several Hollywood locations, and also has its own in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
For reference, the sound stage where Disney's "The Mandalorian" was shot, was about 10,000 square feet. Movie and TV production advocate FilmLA believes that the average studio in the area is about 100,000 square feet.
Apple reportedly has the exclusive lease on an 85,000 square-foot facility in the La Cienage Expo facility. It routinely shoots on the streets of Culver City, and many of its hired studios shoot in Vancouver, Canada.
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2 Comments
Apple needs to produce everything itself. It felt awkward seeing the “SONY” logo before one of their shows.
These will be pretty impressive studios. No doubt everything used will be completely state of the art! Curious to hear what kind of cameras they will be using and what their post-production workflow will be like.