They had seen where Bob Hope once broke a dressing room window with a golf ball. Soon, they would drive by a beige building where artists used to toil on Betty Boop.
But first, the seven people on a Paramount Pictures studio tour would have the chance to scrutinize a park bench.
Jasnik Moreno, who was leading the tour, explained that the ordinary looking apparatus was one of three benches that Tom Hanks sat on in “Forrest Gump,” which topped the box office 31 years ago. “You’re welcome to take a photo if you want,” she said, flashing a triumphant smile.
Nobody moved. One guy yawned.
Hollywood backlots aren’t the wonderlands they once were. Paramount, which made a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday in a desperate attempt to improve its fortunes, released only eight films last year — compared with 90 annually in its early days. Moreover, not one of the eight was filmed in Los Angeles.
Movie production at most competing studios (including Warner Bros.) has withered in a similar way. It’s usually too expensive to make movies on these campuses anymore, the companies will tell you. Movie cameras now mostly roll in states like Georgia and New York and in countries like Britain and Hungary, all of which offer generous tax incentives.
Studio tours used to leave people dazzled. Cinema, the world’s defining cultural medium, became tangible on the guided visits — a chance to walk among the gods. Now, at least for anyone interested in movies from this century, the tours have largely become the equivalent of those kitschy foldout maps to celebrity homes: melancholy reminders that Hollywood stopped being the Hollywood of popular imagination a very long time ago.
“As a history tour, I would highly recommend it,” Carly Maga, 37, said of Paramount’s guided visit. “But I also felt like it was a metaphor for the larger dilemma of Hollywood.”
And that would be?
“Fading relevancy,” she said.
Paramount’s new owner, David Ellison, has pledged to reinvest in the lot and release as many as 20 films annually. The studio noted that its tour has strong online reviews. “The majority of the tour visitors give our tour 5/5 stars, and we all agree more films should be made in Los Angeles and hope to host them here,” a spokeswoman said.
Studio tours date to Hollywood’s earliest days. In the 1910s, Universal Pictures charged 25 cents for a peek at active silent movie sets. In 1964, Universal invented the vehicle-based studio tour; visitors boarded red-and-white-striped GlamorTrams, which traversed outdoor sets and stopped for special effects demos. (Sprinklers on poles to simulate rain, for instance.) Stars would smile and waive. Some posed for photos.
Universal’s tour still operates, but many of its sights have aged: Look! The sun-faded remains of a jetliner, which you may (or may not) remember from a 2005 remake of “The War of the Worlds.”
“It’s not just that so few movies are made on studio lots anymore,” Jeanine Basinger, the film scholar, said. “It’s also how movies are made. You often don’t have practical sets in the same way. So much is done with a green screen. There’s literally nothing to see.”
TV shows are still assembled on these campuses, of course. “Matlock,” “NCIS: Origins” and “The Rookie” are among the broadcast series that use Paramount stages. But the traditional television business has also atrophied — fewer viewers, shorter seasons, less cultural cachet. TikTok and YouTube, which overflow with user-generated content, have the heat now, along with Netflix, which makes much of its programming in states like New Mexico and New Jersey.
“It honestly felt like a place that was on its last legs,” Ali McKay, 34, said of the Paramount lot, which she recently toured with Ms. Maga while on vacation from Canada. “Very little was immediate or particularly relevant. There was a vibe of tiredness, like the end of something.”
Paramount tours cost $69 and leave from a two-room museum of a sort near the studio’s former frontier town set (now a parking lot). A few costumes from recent hits like “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) and “Gladiator II” (2024) adorned the space, along with Oscars won by Paramount films like “Wings” (1927) and “The Godfather” (1972).
From there, visitors hop on stretch golf carts and trundle toward the studio’s iconic Bronson Gate. Back in the day, aspiring actors used to swarm the archway hoping to get discovered. On a recent Friday, however, the spot would have been empty if not for seven tour takers.
Pauline Bransfield, 64, and her son, Ben, 38, were among them. “It’s a little quiet, isn’t it?” she said to him in a whisper, as if reluctant to break the silence.
The area could become less desolate next year, when Paramount ends the remote work policy it adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Sometimes, people ask, ‘Where is everybody?’” Ms. Moreno, the tour guide, said. “A lot of people have been able to work from home.”
After taking in the “Forrest Gump” bench — Ms. Bransfield posed for a photo with it — the group headed toward Stage 18. Alfred Hitchcock filmed “Rear Window” (1954) there.
Just then, the group spotted a celebrity, if not of the Hollywood variety: Anna Wintour was standing in a floral dress and her signature shades near Stage 17. She was preparing for a Vogue event that would involve a runway show and cocktail party. Paramount had rented space to Condé Nast, where Ms. Wintour serves as chief content officer, as part of its “open lot” policy, essentially a way to keep soundstages working at a time when few movies are being shot locally.
But stages sometimes sit empty nonetheless, as the Bransfields and their tour mates found out. Their visit included a look around Stage 31, a cavernous, brightly lit space containing … nothing.
Ms. Moreno pointed out the insulated walls — feel free to touch them if you want — and said the 95-year-old building had once housed sets for “Star Trek” (1966) and “Wayne’s World 2” (1993).
Later in the tour, several visitors used their phones to take pictures of Paramount’s famous water tower, a 145-foot structure featuring the studio’s blue logo, a majestic mountain surrounded by stars. The elevated tank was built in the 1920s and held water until the mid 1950s, Ms. Moreno told the group.
“There’s nothing in it?” a reporter asked.
“Nothing except for hopes and dreams,” Ms. Moreno said. “Those are still there.”
The tour paused outside a postproduction building where John Krasinski finished “A Quiet Place Part II” (2020) and stopped near a spot where Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz worked in the 1950s while taping “I Love Lucy.”
“This is them in case you are unfamiliar,” Ms. Moreno said, using an iPad to pull up a photograph of the two stars.
Paramount’s tour usually includes an exploration of New York Street, a permanent five-acre set near the back of the lot. Dozens of false-front buildings can be styled to look like different New York City neighborhoods (Wall Street, Brooklyn, Soho).
On this particular Friday, however, tour groups could view the set only from its perimeter because crews were setting up for a shoot. Two large lights had been mounted on cranes, and three stagehands pushed a bus stop (mounted on rollers) into place.
“What are they working on?” Mr. Bransfield said.
“I’m not sure,” Ms. Moreno replied as she turned the golf cart around. “But things are happening!”
Brooks Barnes covers all things Hollywood. He joined The Times in 2007 and previously worked at The Wall Street Journal.
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