Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank
The lot predates the brothers who made it famous. First National Pictures built the studio at 4000 Warner Boulevard in Burbank in 1926, on a flat piece of land in the San Fernando Valley where the light was good and the land was cheap. Warner Bros. took it over in 1928, riding the momentum of The Jazz Singer — the first feature-length talking picture, released the year before — and what had been a real estate transaction became, over the following decades, one of the most consequential pieces of land in the history of American entertainment.
The Lot and What Grew on It
The studio now covers 62 acres and holds 35 sound stages. New York Street — a permanent backlot set constructed in 1930 — has stood in for Manhattan in productions ranging from Blade Runner to The Dark Knight, its facades repainted and reconfigured across nine decades of filmmaking. Hennessy Street, built in 1937, served as the London backdrop for My Fair Lady. Midwest Street, constructed in 1939, appeared in Gremlins. Stage 16, one of the largest sound stages in the world, contains a 2-million-gallon water tank capable of accommodating full-scale ship sets. These were not novelties but infrastructure — the physical plant that allowed Warner Bros. to make movies quickly and at scale, year after year, across changing eras of technology and taste.
Ten Years on Stage 24
Friends filmed on Stage 24 for all ten of its seasons, from 1994 to 2004. The cast became, during that decade, arguably the most recognizable group of television actors in the world, and the stage where they worked has since been renamed The Friends Stage in their honor. The Clint Eastwood Scoring Stage — named for the director and composer who has worked at the studio for decades — serves as one of the premier recording spaces in Hollywood for film scores. The lot is home to DC Studios, which develops the DC film and television universe. The Warner Bros. Museum chronicles the studio's century of production history. A studio tour, operating since 1973, brings visitors directly onto the working lot.
The Second Century
In 2023, Warner Bros. completed a major expansion designed by architect Frank Gehry — the first significant addition to the studio campus in decades. The project, called the Second Century expansion, added new production facilities and administrative buildings to the eastern portion of the lot while preserving the historic core of the studio. The studio began as a working factory for film and has remained one, adapting through the transition from silent pictures to sound, from black and white to color, from theatrical releases to streaming. The New York Street sets outside — their brick facades weathered and authentic-looking in that particular way that only decades of use can produce — have represented a city that is not here, over and over, for nearly a century.
From the Air
Located at 34.1487°N, 118.3376°W in Burbank, California, immediately north of the Burbank city center. The studio lot's distinctive cluster of sound stages and backlot streets is visible from the air, bordered by Warner Boulevard to the south and the Burbank hills to the north. Bob Hope Airport (KBUR) lies approximately 1.5 miles to the west and is the primary airport for this area — the studio is almost directly on the extended centerline of Runway 15. Maintain pattern altitude and be alert to KBUR traffic when flying near this location.