By Iain Blair
Located in a quiet, leafy neighbourhood, a short distance from the iconic Warner Bros. Studios Burbank Main Lot, The Ranch is the impressive new state-of-the-art production facility, one that has been years in the making and which, after nearly two years of construction, opened at the start of 2026 to much fanfare in Hollywood. “I wouldn’t say it’s the perfect studio because there’s no such thing as perfect, but it’s as close as you can get to what our clients need in the current climate,” Dan Dark, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Studio Operations, told me. He’s not exaggerating. The Ranch is home to 16 state-of-the-art sound stages ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 sq.ft.
Acoustically engineered with filmmaking in mind, the industry-leading stages all include dimmer rooms, dedicated set lighting power, extensive grid and rigging capacity, high-capacity silent AC and high-speed wired and wireless connectivity. And next to the stages stands The Mill, a purpose-built workshop space offering over 40,000 sq. ft. of construction space, complete with dedicated air, power and water supplies, safe battery charging and interior and exterior wi-fi. With large rollup doors for easy access and a further 20,000 sq.ft. of mezzanine floor for office or storage areas, The Mill offers ample space for any production, big or small.
So, in a city full of stages and historic backlots, what makes The Ranch a special destination?
“We’re incredibly proud of The Ranch, and, alongside our partners at Worthe Real Estate, we built it with creators top of mind – we like to say it is built by filmmakers, for filmmakers,” adds Ian Corrigan, Executive Director, Studio Operations, Warner Bros. Discovery. “In terms of soundstages, it was important to us to offer options to productions instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, so The Ranch is home to soundstages offering a wide range in terms of square footage, and at varying trim heights. This allows filmmakers to flex a space based on their needs. When designing these stages, we consulted with our local crew to ensure we were building stages they wanted. We asked them what they liked and disliked about stages they’d worked in before, to make sure we were building to fit their specific needs. For example, we built dimmer rooms on the ground floor with redundant power, HVAC, ethernet, Wi-Fi, and fire suppression. No more having to hoist dimmers up to the perms. All our stages are concrete tilt up construction with a one-foot air gap between each stage so there’s no concern about noise bleed. There are a lot of small quality of life features that crew members are already noticing that we’ve learned from years of listening to feedback from the folks working on stage every day.”
Ian Corrigan, Executive Director, Studio Operations
The need for flexibility is a constant touchstone for the team, notes Dark. “Our focus is not only about making sure that the facilities are state-of-the-art in every way, but that we also come at this with a very production-minded approach. I’ve grown up in production, and most of the team, whether it’s here or in the UK at our Leavesden studio, have got a good level of production experience And so we’re very used to needing to be flexible to adjust to whatever the production needs happen to be. And, and I say this very often, we’re very used to getting the phone call on a Sunday night saying everything’s changed for tomorrow morning. And that’s the nature of the beast. That’s the world we live in, so I’ve always reinforced to our teams that it’s critical that we are production-friendly, and that the production see us as a partner and not just the folks who run the studio.”
Underscoring that philosophy, The Ranch also offers production support buildings situated across three floors and adjacent to each stage, including dressing room suites equipped with private facilities, green room, bullpen area, private offices, hair and make-up rooms and stage feed capability. The site is also equipped with costume suites with fitting rooms, laundry, pantry, open workstation area, storage and private offices, as well as office suites with a wide range of offices, a dedicated conference room, pantry and executive offices. Flexible suites can be adapted to individual production requirements with ample storage, open workstation area, pantry and private offices.
The Ranch is also home to a retro-styled creative office building offering five floors of flexible creative space, complete with a large Looney Tunes-themed café (check out Bug’s Bistro) with multiple food and beverage options, and a separate coffee shop. The building offers a wide range of office options including executive office suites and has large meeting rooms on each floor as well as multipurpose event spaces with outdoor seating and adjacent pantries and is equipped with ultra-fast Wi-Fi and secure wired networks. Every space is designed to support high-speed, uninterrupted collaboration across the studio, and can be effortlessly configured to connect securely with remote locations worldwide.
The big advantage of this overall design and approach is that The Ranch and the Warner Bros. Main Lot can offer “one-stop-shop, full-service production facilities and support services,” stresses Corrigan. “When production comes to our properties, they don’t have to leave. Our production rentals and support services like grip, set lighting, costumes, props, special effects, transportation and more work seamlessly back and forth between the Main Lot and The Ranch, ensuring productions have whatever they need on hand.” He also stresses that The Ranch was built “with heavy data and networking requirements in mind.
Euphoria
We have fiber connectivity everywhere at the studio including connections back to the main lot as well. Each building and stage has 10 gig connectivity and the latest networking hardware including two on site machine rooms so we’re ready for the future. We have on-site networking teams available 24/7 for any production support needs. Our Studio Operations team is here to partner with all our filmmakers as a trusted resource and liaison. We work closely from beginning to end and advocate on behalf of production needs to make sure they can achieve their creative vision.”
Production needs have evolved rapidly over the past few years, and Dark notes that the ability to do volume shoots “is essential now, and connectivity is clearly one of the critical factors these days. We wanted to ensure that any production that shoots here has access to all the services that we’ve got online. And stage height was another key consideration. It’s funny, as in the early days of green screens, everybody was thinking that we were going to lower stage heights – but in fact we are making them higher, up to 45 feet for some stages. You know, this is the basics, and getting the basics right is critical. At the end of the day, a stage is a soundproof black box.
What we need to do is make sure that that black box is as flexible as it can possibly be to be able to support the productions. And so, we certainly increased the amount of power requirements that we got for the stages. Clearly everything is as energy efficient as we can possibly make it, so we have LED lighting throughout. And it’s all stuff that we’ve learned over the years as to what’s needed – and sometimes, more importantly, what’s not needed. I’ve seen places that have overspent on their facilities, and they just become too complicated and they lose their flexibility. I’ve always said that the keyword for any studio’s development is ‘flexibility.’ So, we keep that word at the very top of the list because every production is different, and the needs change.”
As an example, Dark reports that, “One of the things that we’re seeing in LA for ourselves is that the base cap requirements for a lot of the shows, especially our bigger HBO shows (think Euphoria and Seth Rogen’s The Studio), are increasing substantially, especially for the tech trucks and artist trailers. So, when we were designing the garage, we really made sure we maintained some large base camp areas adjacent to the stages to be able to support the huge number of trucks that that are now needed for these types of larger shows.”
In terms of productions already active at the facility, he notes that, “As always with these things, they take a little bit of time to get off the ground but we’ve actually got four of our own shows that will be moving in shortly at the end of May, and they’ll take us right away through to the end of the year. And we’ve already supported several very large commercials – I can’t say which ones, along with a rigging workshop, so it’s already being used very efficiently. And people appreciate coming into a brand new facility that’s part of the Warner Brothers portfolio and a big enhancement to our overall portfolio, and it’s this great new tool in our toolbox, and we can make strategic decisions as to where we’re best placing our own shows, whether it be here at The Ranch, on the main lot, or at Leavesden in the UK.”
The Studio
It’s notable that The Ranch has opened its doors at a risky time when most stages in L.A. have been struggling to fill their cavernous, empty spaces. FilmLA, the group that handles film permits for the city and county, just reported record-low soundstage occupancy rates – down to just barely 60 percent in the first half of 2025, compared to the almost-capacity 90 percent it reported in 2022. But Warner Bros. has avoided the dismal trend and instead reported 91 percent occupancy rates for its busy stages in 2025. In fact, the studio reportedly hit peak capacity by the end of 2025, thanks to big hit shows including Euphoria, The Studio, and Abbott Elementary shooting on the lot, and were forced to turn more business away. So, the future looks very bright for The Ranch.
Summing up, Corrigan adds that, “We work with productions from around the city and state, from our own teams at HBO, Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Pictures and our special events division, to third-party productions spanning films, television, commercial shoots and more. We have many projects lining up so it should be a busy summer and fall for us.”
Header Image: Daniel Dark, executive vice president, Worldwide Studio Operations
