John Mayer & McG Teaming To Buy Jim Henson Lot On La Brea – The Dish
EXCLUSIVE: John Mayer and McG are closing in to buy the famed Jim Henson Studio lot and the Charlie Chaplin Studios at 1416 N. La Brea in Los Angeles. Sources are telling us this tonight. No purchase price was disclosed.
The Grammy-winning singer has offices at the Jim Henson lot and uses the studio there to record, we hear. McG is the filmmaker behind the original Sony Drew Barrymore-Cameron Diaz-Lucy Liu Charlie’s Angels movies as well as the Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy action rom-com This Means War.
A rep for Jim Henson Company declined comment. A rep for Mayer told Deadline’s Dish that the singer and McG are under contract to buy the Henson lot. Deadline reached out to a rep for McG. We’ll update you when we hear back from them.
Triple note: Disney doesn’t own the Jim Henson lot, the Henson family does. There was buzz that the Church of Scientology was circling to buy the property in early October, but Deadline learned that wasn’t true.
A spokesperson for the Jim Henson family said then: “In regards to recent rumors about the sale of the La Brea studio lot, the Henson family is not in any business dealings with the Church of Scientology, and that organization is not in consideration as a potential buyer of the property. It is still the family’s intention to move The Jim Henson Company to a new location it can share with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, but at this time the family is not in escrow with any buyer.”
The 80,000-square-foot facility included recording studios and, at the time of the Henson family purchase in 2000, it contained Chaplin’s 10,000-square-foot sound stage and original woodworking shop.
The Jim Henson Company put the lot on the sale block in an effort to put the production company and its Burbank-based Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in one facility, which the space at La Brea could not accommodate. Chaplin shot his movies The Kid, The Gold Rush, Modern Times and The Great Dictator at the studio.
In 1952, Chaplin sold the property to real estate development firm Webb and Knapp, who ultimately rented to feature productions like George Reeves’ Adventures of Superman. Red Skelton purchased the lot in 1960, and it was owned by CBS from 1962-1966. By1966, it was in the hands of Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ A&M Records.
