Tech firm in talks over office space at Culver Studios in California as it vies to become heavy hitter in TV and film

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Apple is considering moving into the studio famous for films such as Gone With The Wind and The Matrix as it vies to become a major player in TV and film.

The tech company plans to invest $1bn on original TV programming over the next year and is reportedly in discussions with the Culver Studios, close to the Culver City offices of Beats, which it acquired from co-founders Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine for $3bn two years ago.

The studio, which has been owned by RKO, Howard Hughes and Cecil B DeMille, has more than a dozen soundstages for TV and film work. However, Apple is mainly looking for office space, according to the Financial Times.

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Moving the management of its original content division to such a status symbol location would mark Apple’s latest signal that it is to ramp up its challenge to streaming giants Netflix and Amazon as well as traditional TV broadcasters.

Apple made no comment on the talks and Culver Studios was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

In June, Apple recruited Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg from Sony as its new TV chiefs. The pair have been responsible for striking a £100m co-production deal with Netflix to make The Crown, and have overseen production of hit shows including Breaking Bad and The Black List.

Apple has so far only dipped its toe in original programming, striking a deal to spin James Corden’s popular Carpool Karaoke segment from his late night TV show in the US into a 16-episode series featuring stars such as Will Smith.



There was also Planet of the Apps – a sort of Dragon’s Den featuring Gwyneth Paltrow, will.i.am, Jessica Alba and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk on a panel that sees app developers competing for funding – which Apple Music made available in June.



In development are documentaries about Sean “P Diddy” Combs and Clive Davis, as well as a six-part series on Dr Dre.

Given Apple’s huge resources – it has a stock value of $815bn, almost twice Jeff Bezos’s Amazon ($474bn), five times Disney ($168bn), and more than 10 times Netflix ($77bn) – its intent to enter original programming makes it a serious new player in the TV market.



Netflix has committed $6.6bn to buying and creating TV programmes and it makes about 1,000 hours of its owns shows annually; HBO, the Game of Thrones and Sopranos maker, spends about $2bn a year.



Amazon, which paid up to £150m to lure former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, is estimated to spend about $4.5bn annually on its Prime Video service.



Analysts had speculated that Apple could buy Disney to bolster its content strategy.