After Warner Bros. Merger, Changes Are Coming To The Historic Paramount Lot. Here's What To Expect

With Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. expected to saddle nan mixed institution pinch $79 cardinal successful debt, Paramount executives are looking to do distant pinch redundant assets including existent property — and location is simply a batch of that.

Chief successful nan public’s imagination are their historical studios successful Burbank and Hollywood, wherever legendary films and tv show person been made for generations and proceed to run year-round.

“Both of these studios are successful nan halfway [30-mile zone,] nan soul circle of wherever Hollywood talent wants to be,” intermezo spot agent Nicole Mihalka of CBRE said. “It’s very premier existent estate.”

When Sony and Apollo were bidding for Paramount successful early 2024, their scheme was to waste nan Paramount property, but location is nary denotation that Paramount would portion pinch its namesake lot.

For now, Paramount’s scheme is to support some studios operating pinch each workplace releasing astir 15 films a year, but nan extremity is to yet consolidate astir of nan workplace operations astir nan Warner Bros. batch successful Burbank successful bid to to destruct redundancies pinch nan Paramount batch connected Melrose Avenue, group adjacent to Chief Executive David Ellison said.

A position of nan Warner Bros. Studios h2o building Feb. 23, 2026, successful Burbank.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Paramount would not look to raze its celebrated workplace batch — nan oldest operating movie workplace successful Los Angeles — because of various restrictions connected historical buildings there. Paramount besides has a comparatively caller post-production installation connected tract and will apt request to nan workplace space.

Instead, nan scheme would beryllium to lease retired abstraction for movie productions, including those from mixed Paramount-HBO streaming operations. Ellison besides is considering plans to create different parts of nan 65-acre tract for imaginable unit use, arsenic good arsenic renting abstraction for commercialized offices.

The studios’ mixed spot holdings are vast, and existent property information supplier CoStar estimates they person astir 12 cardinal quadrate feet of overlapping uses, including their workplace campuses, offices and semipermanent leases successful specified movie centers arsenic Burbank, Hollywood and New York.

Century-old Paramount Pictures Studios is awash successful Hollywood history — deliberation Gloria Swanson arsenic Norma Desmond desperately trying to participate its celebrated gross successful “Sunset Boulevard,” and different classics specified arsenic “The Godfather,” “Titanic” and “Breakfast astatine Tiffany’s.”

The lot, however, is simply a congested warren of stages, offices, trailers and support accommodation specified arsenic woodworking mills that day to nan early 20th century. The layout is byzantine successful portion because Paramount bought nan erstwhile rival RKO workplace batch from Desilu Productions to create nan batch known today.

Warner Bros. occupies 11 cardinal quadrate feet and owns 14 properties totaling 9.5 cardinal quadrate feet, mostly successful nan United States and United Kingdom, CoStar said. About 3 cardinal quadrate feet of that commercialized spot is successful nan Los Angeles area.

The firm’s portfolio besides includes nan sprawling Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden analyzable successful nan U.K. and Turner Broadcasting System office successful Atlanta.

Paramount Skydance occupies 8 cardinal quadrate feet and owns 14 properties totaling 2.1 cardinal quadrate feet, according to CoStar. In summation to its Hollywood campus, Paramount’s holdings see salient buildings successful New York specified arsenic nan Ed Sullivan Theater and CBS Broadcast Center.

Warner Bros. operates a 3-million-square-foot batch successful Burbank pinch much than 30 soundstages — on pinch abstraction for building sets and backlot areas — wherever celebrated movies including “Casablanca” and tv shows specified arsenic “Friends” were filmed. Paramount’s 1.2-million-square-foot Melrose field anchors a broader web of owned and leased accumulation space, CoStar said.

Paramount’s batch is already cleared for much development. More than a decade ago, Paramount secured metropolis support to adhd 1.4 cardinal quadrate feet to its office and immoderate adjacent properties owned by nan company.

The redevelopment plan, valued astatine $700 cardinal successful 2016, underwent years of biology reappraisal and nationalist outreach pinch neighbors and section business owners.

The scheme would let for building of up to 1.9 cardinal quadrate feet of caller stage, accumulation office, support, office, and unit uses, and nan removal of up to 537,600 quadrate feet of existing stage, accumulation office, support, office, and unit uses, for a nett summation of astir 1.4 cardinal quadrate feet.

The connection preserves elements of nan past by focusing early improvement connected circumstantial portions of nan batch on Melrose and constricted areas successful nan accumulation core, architecture patient Rios said.

The Warner Bros. and Paramount tons “are 2 of nan astir premier pieces of existent property successful nan country,” Mihalka said. “These are bequest assets pinch a batch of imaginable to beryllium [tourist] attractions successful summation to moving studios.”

Hollywood is still reeling from erstwhile mergers, successful summation to a sharp pullback successful movie and tv accumulation locally as filmmakers pursuit taxation credits offered overseas and successful different states, including New York and New Jersey.

Last year, lawmakers boosted nan yearly magnitude allocated to nan state’s movie and TV taxation in installments programme and expanded nan criteria for eligible projects successful an effort to lure accumulation backmost to California. So far, much than 100 movie and TV projects person been awarded taxation credits nether nan revamped program.

The benefits person been slow to materialize, but Mihalka predicts that nan taxation credits and desirability of moving adjacent to location will lead to much workplace usage successful nan Los Angeles area, including astatine Warner Bros. and Paramount.

“These are specified premier locations that we’ll spot show runners and talent push backmost connected having shows located retired of authorities and insist connected being here,” she said. “I deliberation you’re going to spot much affirmative activity here.”

Times unit writer Meg James contributed to this report.