Hollywood's Sound Stage Supremacy Under Pressure

Bob Iger Returns from Private Equity to Publicly Fix Disney

Did no one see this coming? Really?

Hackman recently announced a further US$1.6 billion capital raise for its global HCP Studio Fund from a diverse range of institutional investors. Other larger PE fund managers have been active as well.

Private Equity investor Silver Lake announced last June that it would be investing US$500 million into Shadowbox Studios, a production facilities company with sound stages in LA, Atlanta and London.

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4 Comments

what’s not mentioned here is of course tax credits/ government incentives – one of the primary drivers of production location.

Lets hope that the strike in the US helps the fledgling European small countries film industry to start flourishing.

If there indeed is such a shortage of sound stages, then everyone is helped if more of them are build.

Insightful article, but would have touched on one more factor – one beyond real estate and capacity.

Today The Writers Guild went on strike in the US – and L.A. is a Union and Guild town. In a city for of sharks, I can see the need for the powerless to have voices – I applaud and support that aim.

But as a media professional living in the city, I couldn’t help but notice that they also act as a closed-shop for newer and more diverse talents – as well as sometimes giving jobs who have more seniority, over the right talent mix to shine at an event. That’s especially true in TV.

That’s a really long winded way of saying, LA as a union town is also a comparatively really expensive place to film in on sound stages., with further operational restrictions that made sense – but for a world now decades gone.

Sound stages in Canada, the UK, Czechia and beyond don’t have that. A point proven as streamers like Netflix lean in to non-US produced content to keep US audiences happy during the Writers strike.