Hackman Capital Loses Regardless of Warner Bros. Outcome

As Netflix and Paramount fight to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, Hackman Capital Partners is bracing for impact.

Los Angeles-based Hackman, the largest independent owner and operator of soundstages, is facing high studio vacancy rates and depressed rents, the Wall Street Journal reported. The firm owns more than 60 soundstages at six studio properties in the L.A. region but has seen occupancy shift as more productions move outside the city.

Regardless of whether Netflix or Paramount emerges as the buyer of Warner Bros. Discovery, demand for soundstage space will likely drop as Warner Bros. owns a large amount of its own studio real estate, leading the new buyer to shift production from leased stages to its owned facilities.

“The whole ecosystem is really under distress,” Michael Hackman, CEO of Hackman Capital, told the Journal.

Film and TV productions are pursuing cheaper labor and filming costs overseas as countries like Canada, Australia and some European nations offer incentives to work there instead.

Hackman is hopeful that the Trump administration will back the U.S. entertainment business with tariffs on countries offering these incentives and tax breaks for productions that stay local for filming. “A lot is going to depend on support from the government helping to offset some of these advantages they have outside the U.S.,” Hackman said.

Hackman began investing heavily in studio ownership a decade ago with its acquisition of Culver Studios in 2014. Since then, the firm has bought more than 2 million square feet of production space worldwide, most of it in the Los Angeles region. The 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes led to increased studio cost-cutting, reflected in the exodus to other filming locations today.

Last year saw nearly 30 percent fewer big-budget U.S. film and TV projects begin shooting compared to 2022, per ProdProp data cited by the Journal. This year continued the downward trend with an additional 12 percent drop through November compared with the same period in 2024.

“We all thought that when the strikes ended, there would be all this pent-up demand for Hollywood production,” John Kim, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets, told the Journal. “But it’s spread out. Even though [content companies] are based in Los Angeles, they can produce anywhere globally.”

For now, Hackman is tightening up its finances, which includes scaling back the construction of a major campus planned in the Dublin, Ireland, area. If local production in Los Angeles doesn’t return to its former heights, studio landlords like Hackman may have to find other uses for their soundstage campuses, such as live events and themed attractions based on movies.

“The industry is evolving,” Hackman said. “We can’t stay passive.”

— Chris Malone Méndez