The Fall of a Giant

Warner Bros used to feel like Hollywood.

A living, breathing organism where energy pulsed through every corridor.

But walking that lot today feels like walking through a mausoleum.

The parking lots are empty. The sound stages are silent.

Even the air carries that strange mix of grandeur and decay.

I recently worked on a major film—an ambitious, large-scale project from one of the most visionary directors of our time.

The movie did not use Warner Bros for it’s post production services but rather as a vendor from which space and equipment was rented. Sound post production was awarded to an outside company of which I was a part of and we rented space on the lot because the filmmaker wanted all the teams centralized. WB, a brand that once defined cinematic innovation, became the rental facility.

The place that was once the beating heart of cinema has become a vendor for it, not the home of it.

Warner Bros now feels like a wounded animal on the savanna, once dominant, now slow and overfed, surrounded by leaner, faster predators circling in.

Paramount’s David Ellison and others circle the carcass, not out of reverence, but appetite.

They’re not rescuing a legacy but rather they’re stripping it for parts.

When a once-towering institution becomes a bargaining chip, you know the fall is just about complete.

Creativity doesn’t thrive in ghost towns.

And Warner Bros, once a creative empire, now feels like a relic of one.

Even pulling up to the gate feels almost surreal.

The rusty water tower looms overhead. The security arms lift mechanically.

Uniformed guards stand at the gates of a once-great city now unsure what they’re protecting.

Inside, it all feels excessive, bloated, unnecessary.

A monument to bureaucracy and faded prestige.

Executives wandering around clinging to titles that no longer matter,

trying to justify their existence inside an organism that’s forgotten its purpose.

The lot that once overflowed with ideas, innovation, and talent is now… well, it’s unclear what it is, a museum? A rental facility? A memory with a logo?

There simply isn’t much happening there.

The lot feels quiet, the schedules thin.

I doubt I’ll be back anytime soon not because of choice, but because there’s not much left to return to..

The reality is, the spirit of Hollywood isn’t tied to geography anymore.

It doesn’t live behind guarded gates or within the walls of privilege and access.

It lives in the artists wherever they are.