Fox to add nine soundstages to Century City movie lot

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox is expanding its nearly century-old Century City studio lot with nine more soundstages.

The New York-based media firm will enlarge the former 20th Century Fox complex with soundstages, new production facilities and offices at 10201 West Pico Boulevard, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Fox has leased the facility to Disney for seven years as part of a $52 billion deal in 2017, in which Disney acquired Fox’s film and television assets, much of which was centered on the lot.   

The 50-acre Fox Studio Lot, founded in 1928, now has 15 studio soundstages, according to its website.

The expansion project, dubbed Fox Future, will add nine soundstages, bringing the total to 24. It will also add post-production facilities, base camps and media campus offices for film and television production in the digital age. 

With Fox Future, Fox could seek a development partner to transform the northeast portion of the Lot along Avenue of the Stars into an office building with 35 floors of office above seven floors of parking.

The expansion will take place where classic movies such as “Miracle on 34th Street” and “Sound of Music” were shot, and where the Fox broadcast network was launched, live sports broadcasting was transformed, and Bart Simpson began his mischief. 

Since then, motion picture and television production has fundamentally changed, according to Fox, with new technologies introduced every day.

The project also aims to ease a shortage of premium studio space in Los Angeles, which has driven production outside the region. There are now around 80 permanent buildings on Fox’s lot, including soundstages, television production and programming facilities, executive offices and support facilities. Altogether, it amounts to nearly 1.8 million square feet of buildings.

The Fox lot has been one of the most active production facilities in the city. ABC’s “Modern Family,” “Speechless” and “Fresh Off the Boat” were shot on the Century City lot, as was Fox’s “The Orville,” “The Mick” and “LA to Vegas,” along with all of Ryan Murphy’s FX shows.

Century City was built on Fox’s backlot in 1956, when studio executives sold off that land to remedy the runaway budget of “Cleopatra” in the middle of a big development boom.

— Dana Bartholomew