Walt Disney Studios (Burbank)
The Walt Disney Studios, located in Burbank, California, United States, serves as the corporate headquarters for the Walt Disney Company. The 51-acre studio lot also contains several sound stages, a backlot, and other filmmaking production facilities for Walt Disney Studios's motion picture production. The complex also houses the offices for many of the company's units, including the film and TV studios Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, ABC, Disney Channel, Freeform, Marvel Studios, 20th Century Studios, 20th Television, Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Family, 20th Television Animation and FX Networks.
Walt Disney used the earnings from the successful release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to finance the construction of the Burbank studio. Designed by industrial architect Kem Weber in the Streamline Moderne style, the lot opened in early 1940. It was uniquely functional, featuring a central "double-H" Animation Building with eight wings to maximize natural light for artists. In the 1950s, the studio added massive soundstages. Stage 2 was built in partnership with Jack Webb, and Stage 3 was specifically designed with a deep water tank for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As of early 2026, Disney has completed the relocation of employees from the former Fox lot in Century City to the main Burbank campus following the expiration of their lease. In summer 2026, a new "Walt Disney Studios" themed land is scheduled to open at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida, featuring replicas of the Burbank lot’s architecture, including the original Animation Building and the iconic water tower.
The Studio's production services are managed by Walt Disney Studios's Disney Studio Services unit – along with Golden Oak Ranch, The Prospect Studios, and KABC-7 Studio B. Disney has a secondary location at Grand Central Creative Campus, where Walt Disney Imagineering and some other units are located. Disney Imagineering manages the studio.
Background
Prior to the official opening of the Burbank lot in 1940, the Walt Disney Studios was situated at several different locations in Los Angeles. During summer 1923, Walt Disney created "The Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio" in his uncle Robert Disney's garage, which was located at 4406 Kingswell Avenue, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. This garage has been on display at the Stanley Ranch Museum in Garden Grove since the 1980s, several blocks away from Disneyland. His brother Roy O. Disney was also in Los Angeles at the time. In October 1923, the brothers leased office space on the rear side of a real estate agency's office at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney accepted an offer from Margaret Winkler of Universal Studios to distribute the new Alice Comedies starring Virginia Davis. It was also at this site where on January 14, 1924, Walt Disney met his future wife Lillian Bounds, an "ink and paint" girl whom he personally hired. In February 1924, the studio moved next door to an office of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. The late Robert Disney's residence and the small office building that is home to 4649 and 4651 Kingswell Avenue have survived to the present and are still in use.In 1925, Walt Disney placed a deposit on a new, considerably larger lot at 2719 Hyperion Avenue, and the studio moved there in January 1926. It was here where, after a train journey with his wife Lillian, Walt created the character of Mickey Mouse in 1928. Here, too, the first three-strip Technicolor animated film, the Silly Symphony ''Flowers and Trees, and the first animated cartoon using Disney's multiplane camera, The Old Mill, were created. In 1937, the Hyperion studio produced Disney's first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. Disney's staff began to grow to a substantial size at the Hyperion Studio, and Disney Legends such as Disney's Nine Old Men began their careers there. The Hyperion studio site was sold in 1940 and divided between two different industrial manufacturers, and in 1966 a subsequent owner demolished what was left of the studio complex and replaced it with the supermarket and shopping center that stand there today. To honor the company's former headquarters from 1926 to 1940, the name 'Hyperion' has been reused over the years by the Walt Disney Company for multiple divisions and attractions, including Hyperion Books and the Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure. The current management team consists of Susan Arnold Bob Iger
, John Nallen COO, Viet Dinh CLO, Tommy Lee CFO, at PBS Susan Arnold CFO, John Gelke VP Global Operations, J Young SVP Growth, Gerard Devan Group Executive APAC, Stephanie Gruber Group Executive Television, Christopher Greavu Vice President of Sales
History
The current Walt Disney Studios, located at 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, was made possible by the revenue from the 1937 release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Walt Disney and his staff began the move from the old studio at Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake from December 1939 to January 1940. A bungalow, the Shorts building and other small buildings that were located at the Hyperion Avenue location were moved to Burbank.Disney purposely planned his new Burbank studio around the animation process. The large Animation Building stood in the center of the campus, while adjacent outlying buildings were constructed for the ink-and-paint departments, the camera and editing departments, and the other various functions of the studio. Tunnels linked some of the buildings, and the lot also included a movie theatre, a sound stage, and a commissary. The 1941 Disney feature The Reluctant Dragon, which combined live action with animated sequences and starred Robert Benchley, served as a tour of the then-new studio. It was later frequently seen and toured on various Disney television programs.
The attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan on December 7, 1941, brought America into World War II. 500 United States Army soldiers of the 121st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion occupied Walt Disney Studios the day after the attack for eight months in the period of the West Coast invasion scare, earning Disney as the only Hollywood studio to come under military occupation in history. During the war, Disney regularly produced propaganda and training films for the U.S. government including its armed forces to increase morale among Americans that the fight against the Axis powers was waged for a just cause.
In the years after the war, the studio began regular work on live-action features, as they needed the money. Though their first films were shot in England, the necessity to build live-action facilities still arose. Lacking the capital to do it themselves, Jack Webb offered to put up some of the money to build live-action soundstages in exchange for the right to use them. During this time, backlots for exterior shots were also built and remained standing at the studios until after a major change in management in 1984.
In 1986, after the corporate restructuring of Walt Disney Productions into the Walt Disney Company, the studio lot was remodeled to accommodate more live-action production space and administrative offices. The studio lot is now home to multiple offices and administration buildings and seven soundstages. It is bounded by South Buena Vista Street on the west, West Alameda Street on the north, South Keystone Street on the east, and West Riverside Drive on the south. It sits in an area of Burbank where the street grid is offset at a diagonal, but most of the original buildings and roads within the campus itself were laid out in alignment with the cardinal directions.
Disney chairman Michael Eisner had the Team Disney building constructed in 1990. In 1992, Disney had gained city approval for its expansion master plan, which included the Riverside Building. The Riverside Building, located next to Feature Animation Building at 2300 Riverside Drive, opened in 2000 for ABC executives and employees.
In April 2013, Marvel Studios moved its offices from Manhattan Beach Studios Media Campus to the studio's Frank G. Wells Building second floor.
In March 2019, Disney acquired most of the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox but did not acquire its studio lot in Century City. Instead, Disney signed a seven-year lease which allowed most Fox film and television employees to continue to work at the Fox Studios lot.
In April 2025, the Los Angeles Times reported that Disney had finally begun the process of vacating the Fox Studios lot in Century City and relocating all employees still based there to its main studio lot in Burbank. The lease was set to expire in March 2026 but Disney left Century City at the end of 2025.
In a nod to the headquarters, a new themed land at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida, also named "The Walt Disney Studios," is set to open in the late summer of 2026. This land will mimic the architecture of the real Burbank lot's Roy E. Disney Animation Building.
Facilities
Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building
Formerly known as the Team Disney Burbank building, Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building is the main building located at the Walt Disney Studios. Completed in 1990 and designed by Michael Graves, the Team Disney Burbank building contains the office of CEO Robert A. Iger as well as the boardroom for the board of directors. It also houses offices for members of Senior Management, such as Alan Bergman, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Prior to the opening of the Team Disney Burbank building in 1990, Disney executives were located in the old Animation building and the Roy O. Disney Building; the animators had been forced to relocate in 1985 into a series of warehouses, trailers, and hangars in nearby Glendale.The Team Disney structure is sometimes called the "Seven Dwarfs Building". It has large sculpted atlantes of the Seven Dwarfs holding up the roof of the eastern façade, an homage to the animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which provided Walt Disney with the revenue to purchase the Burbank lot. Each statue is tall, with the exception of the 2/3-sized Dopey at top. The building is located opposite the Frank G. Wells building, named for Eisner's former colleague, and president of the Walt Disney Company from 1984 to 1994. In 1996, the building was featured in Hollywood Pictures film Spy Hard. On January 23, 2006, in honor of Michael Eisner's 21-year leadership of the company, the Team Disney building was rededicated as Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building.