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Sony Pictures Studios Tour

Take the Sony Pictures Studios Tour and step back into a legendary time. Located on one of the world's most famous studio lots, our walking tour gives you a rare glimpse of old Hollywood's glory days and an insider's view of a state-of-the-art motion picture studio.

Not only is this the studio where the Yellow Brick Road once wound through Munchkin Land, it is also the place where the agents from "Men In Black" battled aliens from outer space and Spider-Man catapulted from skyscraper to skyscraper. Our dynamic studio tour guides will shed light on the film and television production process by taking you to various soundstages and by sharing tales of days gone by. You may even have the chance to visit the sets of the hit game shows "Jeopardy!" or "Wheel of Fortune."

Filled with movie, television and commercial productions on any given day, you never know what- or who- will be just around the corner!

For more information or to make reservations, please call  310-244-TOUR (8687)  or purchase tickets online at:  http://www.sonypicturesstudiostours.com .

© 2024 Sony Pictures Digital Productions Inc.   All rights reserved

Sony Pictures Studio Tour

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Sony Pictures Studio Tour - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Sony Pictures Studios Tour

Betsy Malloy Photography

Back in the early days of movie-making, MGM Studios made its home in Culver City, producing legendary films like The Wizard of Oz , National Velvet and Singin' in the Rain . They produced as many as 52 films a year on two lots near Jefferson Avenue and Overland.

Over the years, the studio had many owners, but the most recent act of the old film giant's Culver City studio began in 1989 when Sony bought Columbia Pictures and formed Sony Pictures Entertainment. 

Sony poured hundreds of millions into renovating the buildings and facilities, eventually naming their venture Sony Pictures Studios. Today, the studio mostly records television shows, but you can still visit the lot for a dose of movie history.

Sony Studios has a fascinating history and you may enjoy the real working studio atmosphere better than the theme park-style studio tour at Universal. However, their tour goes to fewer parts of the studio than Warner Bros or Paramount, and it involves a lot of walking.

Tips for Enjoying the Sony Pictures Studios Tour

Have the right expectations so that you won't be disappointed. You probably won't see a big-name movie star. In fact, you'll be lucky to see a minor one. And you definitely won't get to watch a movie being made. What you will see is the inside of a working film studio, your experience based on the day's activities.

If you're a big fan of the Wizard of Oz , don't expect to see much. While the film was done on no less than six stages, none of them contains a shred of the old sets and even if you get inside, it will look more or less like a large warehouse.

• To improve the chances of having a great tour, avoid the summer and end-of-year holidays when many shows are not working.
• If you're visiting several Hollywood attractions on the same day, you can save money on the Sony Tour if you  buy a GoCard online in advance. You can also use the card to tour Warner Bros. Studios.
• You'll walk 1.5 to 2 miles on your tour, much of it outdoors. You'll also climb a few steps to get into the game show sets.
• Dress for the weather and be aware that a cloudy morning in Culver City often becomes a very hot, sunny day a few hours later.
• If you have small children under the age of 12, this is not the tour for them and children aged 12- 17 must be accompanied by an adult.
• Sony checks ID for anyone who's old enough to have one, so everyone should bring theirs.
• Sony says on their website that no cell phones, video or sound recording is allowed during the tour - and they mean it. But don't leave your camera at home because of it. You can take pictures in the lobby and at selected spots if allowed by your tour guide.
• They ask you to arrive at least thirty minutes before your tour time, which will give you just enough time to look around the mini-museum in the lobby before your tour starts.

Sony Pictures Studio Tour Options

Sony gives several tours daily, Monday through Friday only ( check current hours ). They also give twilight tours on summer Thursdays. However, the studio doesn't work on weekends and they don't give tours, either. Reservations are required. You can  buy your tickets online . 

If you're willing to pay the price, you can try their VIP Lunch Tour, a three-hour tour that avoids the walking. Instead, you travel by golf cart, eat a meal at the Commissary and get into the Sony museum

Tour offerings change frequently. Check the Sony Studio Tour website for current information.

What Happens on the Sony Pictures Studio Tour

The tour leaves from the Sony Pictures Productions office building. While you're waiting, someone will take your photo in front of a green screen to create a souvenir photo you'll pick up at the end. The tour starts with a 15-minute film montage about the studio history.

Highlights of the tour:

• The studio's Oscars collection is on display in the headquarters lobby.
• Depending on production schedules, you may visit the sets for Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. One of these is almost always open, and sometimes both are.
• You'll also visit a few sound stages. Which ones depend on what's going on and what your tour guide can get you into.
• Near the end of the tour, you'll get a chance to visit the gift shop. If you're in the market for mugs, t-shirts, hats and the like, you'll find some here that you can't get anywhere else.

About the Game Shows

The long-running game shows "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune" are both produced at Sony Studios. When they're making new episodes, they shoot six of them per day, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. When they are shooting, the studio tour can't get inside their set. However, the two shows work on alternating schedules, so one set is usually open on every tour. 

If you have your heart set on visiting a specific show's set, take a tour on a day when they're not working. Do your homework to find out when that is.  Check the Jeopardy website  and the Wheel of Fortune website for their schedule by beginning the process of getting tickets to be in their studio audience. 

If you want to see how the game show is done from end to end, choose a day when they are working and use these tips to get tickets to be in their studio audience . It's also possible to make a day of it at Sony, being in the audience for half a day and touring the studio, too. 

Getting There

10202 West Washington Blvd Culver City, CA Sony Pictures Studio Tour website

In the past, guests met at the headquarters at Sony Pictures Plaza, but now you should enter the Overland gate on Overland Ave between Culver and Washington Blvd instead. Valet parking is free. 

Sony Studios is in Culver City, southeast of the intersection of Washington and Culver. Visit the Sony website to see a map and get directions. 

As is common in the travel industry, the writer was provided with a complimentary tour for the purpose of reviewing the Sony Studio Tour. While it has not influenced this review, Tripsavvy.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest.

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Sony Pictures Studio Tour

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Similar Experiences

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Sony Pictures Studio Tour - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Oh, Sony's new guided tour is respectable. It has its interesting moments. But it doesn't even begin to live up to its potential. Compared to other available studio tours, I'd have to say that it ranks below both the Paramount tour and the Warner Bros tour .

[ Warning: It's been several years since I last took the Sony tour, so my review of it, below, is out of date. With luck, they may have improved it since then.  I'll try to update it soon. ]

This is a guided walking tour - no trams here. It lasts about two hours, and is a realistic look at the inner workings of a modern movie studio (no snapping sharks here, folks.) But they charge less than Paramount's $35 per person for the privilege.

And, alas, like Paramount, they also manage to take what should be a fascinating subject and manage to make it seem pretty mundane.

You can spend this time looking at the mini-museum Sony has erected on the east side of the atrium, hosting a small number of exhibits from their current and past films. On my visit this included props and sets from “ Stuart Little ”, and costumes from movies like “ Bugsy ”. (Other exhibits have included items from " Charlie's Angels " and " The Patriot .") There’s also a fast food area and some tables, if you want a snack.

Eventually, your guide for the tour (in our case, a friendly young woman) will emerge to escort the tour group across the street and past the studio gates.

Which brings up one not-so-small problem.

Since Sony now owns the studio (which is now home to their Columbia & TriStar Pictures), I suppose it is to be expected that the emphasis might be on Columbia, rather than on M-G-M.  And it is.

Yet although many of the buildings on the lot are named after former M-G-M greats, M-G-M itself gets only an occasional nod during the tour - a mention or two of boss Louis B. Mayer (often anecdotes about him being a penny-pinching slave-driver), or a passing reference to a classroom where Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney went to school as kids on the lot.

Far more attention is paid to Columbia’s recent productions, such as “ Party of Five ” and “ Jeopardy! ”, than to the 60 years when this lot was the crown jewel of Hollywood, with “more stars then there are in heaven.”  Since Sony is running the tour, that is not surprising - but it is disappointing.

Another drawback to this, and other studio tours, is the absence of permanent outdoor sets.

In Hollywood’s Golden Age, when shooting on location was almost impossible, most major studio lots were filled with large outdoor sets: New York brownstones, European neighborhoods, and Western towns where most of the movies’ outdoor scenes were shot. Studios then were a virtual world of their own.

MGM was no exception. Take a look at the DVD of " That's Entertainment ," which includes an informal tour of this studio's back lots filmed back in 1974, for a glimpse at what MGM used to look like. But don't expect to see the residential neighborhood where Mickey Rooney spent 20 years playing 'Andy Hardy', or the city street where Gene Kelly danced in " Singing in the Rain ," or the train station where Fred Astaire filmed " Band Wagon ."

Alas, those back lot sets are a thing of the past. While Paramount has retained its giant New York set, and both Warner Bros. and Universal have huge back lots, it appears that not a single outdoor set remains on the Sony lot. They were demolished long ago, and the land they used to sit on (on the studio’s west side) was sold to developers who put up rows of tract homes.

From the Thalberg building, the tour heads west, under an impressive bridge displaying giant posters from “ Lawrence of Arabia ” and “ Lost Horizon ”, emerging on a street lined with faux storefronts. This new Main Street is the product of the recent $100 million restoration effort mounted by Sony, which has given the old studio a much brighter, more colorful look. The facelift, with its landscaping and fresh paint, has softened that usual industrial edge that plagues studios, lending more of a campus-like feel to a good portion of the studio lot.  As such, it’s just a more pleasant place to spend time.

(To see what the studio lot looked like before Sony restored it, check out these photos .)

Our guide told us that after Clark Gable ’s wife, Carole Lombard , died in a plane crash, the stars of M-G-M gave Gable a standing ovation when he returned to the couple’s regular table at this commissary. Unfortunately, they didn’t let us go inside - the guide said that it was being used...

And that is a continuing problem on this tour - and other studio tours around town. Many times we had to pass by interesting sites without going inside because they were being used...

The “ Donny & Marie ” set?  Sorry, we couldn’t see it because it was being used.

There is far too much “walking past” and not enough “going in” to suit me...

From there, we followed the north wall west, past a two-story apartment building of sorts that our guide said was once used as a kind of dormitory for performers, complete with matrons who stood guard to prevent fraternization between male & female employees.

Passing a former schoolhouse for child performers and a rehearsal hall where Astaire used to practice his dance moves, we finally went inside for one of the more interesting stops on the tour: the scoring studio, where they record the background music for movies (and other things.)

First they showed us the modern, glassed-in control room, full of electronic keyboards; then we stepped back in time a bit, as we entered the actual recording studio, a bare-wood-walled room where they say the acoustics are so outstanding that they haven’t painted it in decades - for fear of disturbing the audio magic. According to our guide, the room is booked for years in advance, and Whitney Houston refused to record anywhere else.

(My friend says that on his earlier tour they skipped this scoring studio because it was being used...)

Then it was out for an extensive journey through the “industrial” portion of the studio - strolling down alleys past one giant, barn-like sound stage after another.

This is the dreary but authentic reality of the modern-day movie studio, where most business consists of renting sound stage space for interior shooting by production companies.

As we strolled past historic Stage 27, where “ The Wizard of Oz ” was filmed, our guide blithely noted that one could still see some of the original “Yellow Brick Road” inside - but only if they took up the floor! We didn’t even get a peek inside...

But we did go inside a few of the sound stages.

We walked through the sound stage which normally houses “ Wheel of Fortune ”, but on our visit (as luck would have it) the set had been broken down and packaged in crates for hitting the road on one of the game show’s national tours.

We had better luck on the more permanent set of “Jeopardy” , where we sat in the seats overlooking the well-known game board and contestant podiums while our guide gave us a few details about the show and host Alec Trebek. (As you might expect, the familiar set looks considerably different when it is dark.)

We also got a peek inside a dim sound stage with a movable ceiling, and stepped into another where the “flying monkeys” in “ The Wizard of Oz ” were originally filmed as the actors hung from the high ceiling.

(Speaking of sound stages, Sony Studios is home to the largest sound stage in the Western Hemisphere, Stage 15.  It is approximately 42,296 square feet, and about 40 feet high. They filmed " Spider-Man ", " Air Force One " and " Hollow Man " in Stage 15.).

As we headed back towards the gate, we were passed by an extra who looked like he had just been in a bad traffic accident - half of his head and shoulders covered in bloody, gory makeup. He smiled as he passed by - and I wondered if he was a shill. So I asked my friend who had taken the tour earlier if he had also seen “bloody guy” on his tour. He hadn’t. So, it was apparently just one of those spontaneous encounters.

The bottom line about this tour is that it’s reasonably priced, and if you have never seen the inside of a Hollywood movie studio before, it’s well worth a visit. But if you’re expecting something special because this was once the historic M-G-M Studios, or if you’ve already been on the Paramount or Warner Bros. tour, save your money - there’s nothing particularly unique to see here.

But experiences and opinions differ, of course. A fan of Seeing-Stars writes to tell me that the Sony tour was his favorite studio tour. He reports that his tour group was small (just six people), and that when their tour guide spotted Will Smith on the lot, filming " Men In Black II ", she took the them over to meet him, and that Will spoke with the group. They also got within feet of Dabney Coleman and Simon Baker of " The Guardian ". They also enjoyed going on the set of " Jeopardy! " and felt that the tour seemed "less restrictive and less commercial," and that they "really felt like we got behind the scenes."

In September of 2004, Sony announced that it had bought MGM (the company) for $5 billion. There's a touch of irony in this, since Sony has occupied the old MGM studios for years.  Sony acquired MGM mainly in order to get the company's library of films, which is believed to be its most valuable asset. It constituted the biggest library of color movies in the world, including franchises such as "James Bond", "The Pink Panther" and "Rocky".  Word is that MGM will continue to operate as a private company (which the Sony will own), and will continue to put out several films a year. But now that they own the MGM name, perhaps the Sony studio tour will focus more on the MGM heritage on the lot.

Update: as of 2010, I'm told they have added an outdoor scenic backlot of a New York brownstone (which was recently used for " Burlesque ", a film starring Cher and Christina Aguilera.)

Price : $33 per person. You pay for the tickets at the Sony Plaza building across Madison Street from (east of) the main gate. Make reservations in advance, by phoning (323) 520-TOUR. Or, you can now buy your tour tickets online by going to this link .

Hours : Monday through Friday, at 9:30 AM, 10:30 AM, 1:30 PM and 2:30 PM. Reservations are strongly encouraged. The tour lasts approximately two hours. Minimum age: 12.

Parking : an underground garage beneath the same Sony Pictures Plaza atrium - free with the tour.

[For more information on this subject, you can access Sony's official website at: http://www.sonypicturesstudiostours.com .]

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Apparently, fans don’t want JLo now. So her tour producers are hoping they’ll want JLo then.

The struggling North American “This Is Me…Now” tour – Jennifer Lopez ‘s first in five years — is transforming into “This Is Me…Live/The Greatest Hits.” It’s apparently hoped that the promise of familiar material will goose ticket sales, which already saw seven tour dates canceled.

It has been 10 years since Lopez’s last studio LP, 2014’s A.K.A. , and 22 years since 2002’s This Is Me … Then gave her two of her biggest hits in  “Jenny From the Block”  and “All I Have.” 

The two films are This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, and a documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told. ”

The projects were part of a self-financed, $20 million multimedia project that includes the tour and the two films.

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Moscow Studio Symphony Orchestra (formely Moscow Festival Orchestra) is another remarkable recording orchestra. This session orchestra responsible for hundreds of beautiful world class recording of various projects for clientele around the globe. The Moscow Studio Symphony Orchestra consists of the best hand picked session players from a short-list of leading orchestras in Moscow. All musicians have years of experience in both disciplines: studio work as well as live performances. The Orchestra is equally vivid with different musical styles, from classical repertoire to contemporary film music. Designed as a studio recording orchestra, Moscow Studio Symphony is highly distinguished and a recognized world-class ensemble of talented and ambitious performers.

On many sessions with this orchestra you will find the studio floor is assembled almost entirely of principal players of famous Moscow orchestras. It’s hard to get any better than this. All of these aspects will guarantee the highest quality of your recording, which along with very competitive price policies of the Moscow Studio Symphony and flexible session formation of performers to suit you individual needs, makes this orchestra so attractive to work with. The present music director and chief executive of the Moscow Studio Symphony is Yuri Sazonoff. Mr. Sazonoff is the visionary producer in the field of orchestral recordings, with many years experience. He produced countless records with several orchestras in Russia and in Europe. His expertise as a recording producer and prominent composer lies in both musical and technical fields. Having him on the recording floor as producer or supervising your session and taking care of all your needs on both sides of the Atlantic, guarantees success for your project.

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Sony Stage 26

Seen on screen: sony pictures studios [stage_26].

DAILY TOURS

PREMIUM STUDIO TOUR

VIP LUNCH TOURS

TWILIGHT TOURS

GROUP TOURS

Call today 310-244-8687.

Advance reservations are required for group tours. Children ages 12 and over are welcome. Tours include a stop at The Studio Store.

Give your group the "Star Treatment" by scheduling an exclusive guided tour at the historic Sony Pictures Studios, where some of the most famous films have been made for almost a century.

Sony Pictures Studios is a real working studio. You never know what – or who – you're going to see when you step onto the lot!

Please call us at 310-244-8687 to book your next group tour at Sony Pictures Studios!

Additional details:

• Group tours operate Monday-Friday
• Minimum 25 or more guests required for group tour
• Tour route is handicap accessible
• Children ages 12 and older welcome
• Advance reservations required