Apple has informed real-estate developers that the company wants to lease a large production campus in the Hollywood area for its growing entertainment operations, The Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Erich Schwartzel for The Wall Street Journal:
Apple told development executives it is looking at several possible locations, the people said. The new hub could exceed half a million square feet and would complement Apple’s current arrangement, where the company leases soundstages to film in the Los Angeles area and other parts of the world.
Since launching in November 2019, Apple TV+ has streamed a handful of well-known shows and movies, including hits Ted Lasso and The Morning Show, but it remains a relatively small operation compared with entrenched rivals like Netflix or Amazon. Now, with an expansion under way, the company is using big-budget movies and a spate of new film and TV deals to set the stage for it to compete more directly with other tech players…
[Apple’s] need for more soundstages speaks to one of the more surprisingly competitive aspects of streaming: Securing the space needed to produce shows and movies. Part of the reason Apple has been scouting locations for many months, one person said, is that much of the city’s available space has been taken up… Amazon occupies a vast majority of the space at the Culver Studios, a 14-acre expanse where Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane were filmed. Netflix occupies several soundstages in the area, but has also built, purchased and developed its own in Albuquerque, N.M.
At Apple, Mike Mosallam, one of the company’s lead production real-estate executives in Los Angeles, joined in January and is helping oversee soundstage strategy. Mr. Mosallum previously worked as director of production planning and studio leasing at Netflix.
MacDailyNews Take: First they dipped a pinky toe, then a whole foot, then dangled up to both knees – time to jump all the way in, Apple!
Will Apple build a “Volume” virtual set, like is used in “The Mandalorian”? Such sets can produce convincing outdoor location footage, even for programs that don’t have fantasy elements. They are also good when you have sets that only appear for a minute or two.
Buy, lease, steal whatever ‘Hollywood production campuses’ you want Apple. Every single movie product produced resides in the same garbage can as NBA Wokeball, NFL Wokeball, Olympic Pervgames and so on. It all stinks. I ‘take a knee’ on all of it.
Apple should just bite the bullet and buy BET, judging by their commercials and TV shows 90% of the world is black.