Producer Manny Halley Takes Long-Term Lease on Pacoima Studios, Plans $5M in Virtual Production Upgrades
Producer Manny Halley has taken a 25-year lease on Pacoima Studios in the San Fernando Valley, rebranding the four-stage facility as Imani Studio under his Imani Media Group. The deal, first reported by Deadline on 27 August 2026, includes an option to buy the complex outright. The land underneath remains owned by Rexford Industrial Realty, the real-estate firm that held it through the previous operator.
That previous operator was Quixote North Valley Studios, a subsidiary of Hudson Pacific. Quixote began exiting most of its leased sound-stage facilities across Los Angeles in April 2026, leaving a gap in one of the city's busier mid-sized lots. Halley's lease fills that gap and keeps the facility running with its existing staff in place to ensure continuity.
The campus spans six acres and 125,000 square feet, with four sound stages. Its recent tenant list reads like a streaming-era roll call: MTV's RuPaul's Drag Race shot Season 18 there through late July, and the stages also hosted A24's MaXXXine, Apple TV+'s Physical, and Netflix's Atlas, along with commercial work. Halley plans to invest up to $5 million in upgrades, including LED volume walls — large high-resolution screens that display photorealistic 3D environments in real time, allowing film-makers to shoot actors inside virtual locations without leaving the stage — and XR stages that extend those virtual environments across floors and ceilings.
Halley is no stranger to California production. He has shot 18 projects in the state, 16 of which drew tax-credit incentives from the California Film Commission, the state programme that rebates a portion of qualified production spending to keep film and television work from leaving for cheaper jurisdictions. His producer credits span the True to the Game trilogy, Dutch and its sequel Dutch II: Angel's Revenge, the BET comedy series Lot Patrol, Aftershock: The Nicole P. Bell Story, A Holiday Chance, Wayward, and Soul Mates. In 2018, Imani Media Group signed a first-look development deal with NBC's Wilshire Studios, a now-discontinued unit that developed projects for the NBCUniversal television portfolio (Variety).
For Halley, the studio takeover folds production and infrastructure into a single operation. For the San Fernando Valley, it means a six-acre production campus stays active rather than going dark — and the roughly $5 million in planned upgrades could make it one of the more technologically equipped independent lots in the region.
California Film Commission chief Colleen Bell praised facilities like Pacoima for helping keep productions in-state and sustaining crew jobs. BET executive Brian Rikuda, who holds the title of EVP Enterprise Growth Strategy, Business Operations and Programming Strategy, was also cited in the announcement.
Halley's company takes its name from his film Imani, which premiered and aired on BET in 2022 (Los Angeles Sentinel). The rebranded Imani Studio now carries that name onto the marquee of a working production lot — one with a 25-year lease and an option to make it permanent.
