Disney to Help Bring Movie Making Back to California

Disney to Help Bring Movie Making Back to California

Since 1997 the state known for being the Movie Making Capital of the world has lost over 36,000 jobs. This has hit the Golden State, California hard. Much of the movie and TV production that use to happen in the Southern California area has moved out of state and in fact out of the United States.

The loss of much of one of the last of the major industries for California has left the state in a financial mess. Gone are many of the key Aerospace companies, Computer Tec companies and major Movie Production studios. They are moving to locations in other states and countries where costs are lower and regulations more relaxed.

Disney is bucking the trend and expanding the company’s Golden Oak Ranch complex. They will be adding sound stages, writers’ bungalows and other facilities on 58 acres of the sprawling Golden Oak Ranch land in Placerita Canyon. The expansion was approved by County supervisors and is expected to bring in $533 million dollars annual to the local community.

Walt Disney purchased the land in 1959 and it has been used as a film location for many TV shows and movies. With the addition of more modern facilities at the location it will be available to do even more. This expansion will allow Disney (parent company of ABC) to film the majority of their TV shows in one location creating more efficiency.

Here are some of the movies that have been filmed at the Golden Oak Ranch in the past as listed in WikiPedia.

The ranch was used to film the episodes of Spin and Marty, a popular segment of The Mickey Mouse Club and parts of Zorro. The first movie shot at the ranch was Toby Tyler. Most of the exterior scenes in Old Yeller were filmed here. The town featured in Roots: The Next Generations was also built on the Golden Oak Ranch. Other films that were shot on this location include The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Muppets, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Pete's Dragon, Treasure of Matecumbe, The Cat from Outer Space, The Muppet Movie, The Electric Horseman, Little House on the Prairie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Majestic, and Colonel Sanders commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken. A covered bridge spans the man-made stream featured in Follow Me, Boys! and episodes of Bonanza and The Greatest American Hero. The exterior house featured in the original 1961 film The Parent Trap was also shot on the ranch, as was the Peabody farm from the Universal film Back to the Future. It was also used for the filming of Alonzo Hawk's dream sequence in Herbie Rides Again. In 1985, Big Top Pee-wee was filmed here and part of Short Circuit was filmed here as well. According to Phil Abraham, parts of "The Hobo Code" (a first season episode of Mad Men) were filmed here (specifically, the scenes of Don Draper's childhood).

As a California native and having grown up in the shadow of the studios in Burbank, Ca (the REAL Movie Capital of the World) I am happy to see Disney working hard to bring TV and movie production back to the Golden State.