Disney Moving Out Of The FOX Lot By The End Of The Year
Back in 2019, the Walt Disney Company completed its purchase of 20th Century Fox, resulting in Disney acquiring many of FOX’s assets, including 20th Century Studios, FX, National Geographic, and Star India. Other assets, such as FOX News and the FOX channel, were moved into a new business, FOX Entertainment.
Disney’s main reason for going after the 20th Century Studio assets was to build out its streaming platform, which would allow it to create new films and shows and compete with Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.
With the streaming wars in full effect, Disney made a deal with FOX Entertainment to sign a seven-year lease until 2026 and have access to the film lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. This allowed 20th Century Studios, 20th Television and FX to avoid disruption of productions and maintain the status quo by continuing to make films and shows without interfering with Disney’s other studios like ABC.
According to the LA Times, the lease is set to end in March 2026, and Disney won’t be renewing the deal, with plans to move production of its 20th Television and FX studios over to its Burbank lot by the end of the year.
In the last couple of years, Disney has drastically reduced the number of new shows and films it has produced, focusing on quality over quantity. This is likely one of the main reasons why Disney is able to make this shift, in addition to saving money on rent.
Disney has been slowly streamlining its entertainment division, bringing more of its teams together. With the recent merger between ABC Signature Studios and 20th Television, it makes sense to bring everything back in-house. One of the shows that will be impacted is “9-1-1”, along with the writer’s room of “The Simpsons”.
FOX Entertainment is now looking for new tenants to take over the lot, and it will likely not find it difficult to do so because of their location. It’s likely that FOX will lease out the space to multiple different parties. FOX has recently put plans into place to build nine new new soundstages, production facilities and commercial office space on the lot. A company spokesperson said in a statement.
“The FOX Lot is second to none in terms of location and premium production and postproduction facilities available,”
Roger’s Take: The world of movies and television has drastically changed since 2019. The seven-year lease did its job; it allowed Disney and its new studios from FOX, to continue as normal, while giving them time to reorganise their plans and divisions. With the sheer reduction in the number of shows and films being made by Disney’s studios, along with being able to make shows in other locations outside of Los Angeles, it makes sense that Disney can save millions of dollars in rent and unify its studios in-house. While viewers of these shows probably won’t notice any difference, it will still be something we will all see the impact from for years to come.
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