Amazon Takes Up Residence in a Legendary Hollywood Studio

Scarlett O’Hara was once a resident at this iconic location.

A piece of Hollywood’s past has intersected with its future. The historic Culver Studios in Culver City will be the new home to Amazon Studios as it expands its role in film and content production. The studio will also undergo a $12 million restoration of four buildings (the main administrative one served as a stand-in for Tara in the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind. The studio also housed Orson Wells’s monumental Citizen Kane in 1941.

According to the New York Times, “Amazon is only renting Culver Studios, as the 14-acre lot is called. Hackman Capital Partners, a real estate investment company, has owned the rectangular property since 2014 and lured Amazon with a plan to spend $600 million on seven new studio buildings and other upgrades by 2021.

“But Amazon’s decision to move its entertainment division to the compound under a 15-year lease—the company had been using nondescript offices in Santa Monica—demonstrates the degree to which the tech giants have woven themselves into the fabric of Hollywood. You can no longer separate one from the other.”

You can read more about Amazon’s plans for the studios here.