Balance of Power Seeming Shifts to
Valley from Westside 

There were cheers in the Valley when the Disney deal closed toasting the consolidation of studios to eliminate Fox from the picture. The Valley sees this as a shift of power where most of the assets in entertainment are now in the San Fernando Valley with Disney, Warner Brothers, and Universal dominating the production landscape. They added a footnote that Disney would still control the Fox lot (Master Lease) for the foreseeable future but reveled in knowing that headquarters would remain in the Valley.

What they are not seeing is that power continues to shift to the Westside of LA. New players have emerged supplanting the studio system that has maintained a stranglehold on entertainment for many decades. It is true that Disney now is the big kid on the block. They now have a superhero monopoly that will be a FORCE to be reckoned with… yeah, that includes Star Wars. Google has taken over the Westside Pavilion, Amazon has moved into the Culver Studios, Apple is now in Culver City, and Netfiix is at Raleigh Studios. These internet companies see production expenses as lost leaders to drive their other core businesses and they have chosen our side of the hill as their homes.

The battle will rage on but one thing is for sure, Century City will continue to be the deal making capital of entertainment. There are more lawyers, agents, managers, and financiers here in a greater concentration than any other place on the planet.