J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Finds New Stomping Grounds

After nearly 30 years of producing hit television shows and motion pictures, J.J. Abrams production company Bad Robot is leaving Los Angeles.

Under J.J. Abrams’ guiding hand, they created shows like the Mission Impossible movies, Lost, Westworld, and famously the Kelvin-verse Star Trek reboot movies, and the last two Star Wars films The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker. Now they’re scaling down operations and reorganizing as they shut down their Los Angeles office and move to New York, where Abrams now lives.

The company had sold its longtime Santa Monica headquarters for $31 million in November, and has been sheding employees in recenter years. There was a time when the Bad Robot building housed hundreds of employees, including those working in its in-house visual effects arm, Kelvin Optical.

Founded in 1999, the production company cranked out hits, 2001’s Alias, and eventually adding 2004’s Lost, 2008’s Fringe, 2011’s Person of Interest and 2016’s Westworld on the TV side. Bad Robot hasn’t had many big successes lately, though. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was the company’s last major feature film, and that released in 2019.

It was the turning point for Abrams in 2019, when, riding high after its string of genre hits, WarnerMedia beat them in a bidding war over a five year film and TV deal that would have been worth $250 million.

The company was originally set up at Touchstone Television. But in 2019, riding high after its streak of elevated genre hits, WarnerMedia and Bad Robot inked a five-year overall deal film and TV deal worth $250 million. In 2024, the deal was extended for another two years but became a non-exclusive, first-look pact.

Bad Robot is still doing stuff, so they’re not out of the game completely. The company has the Abrams-directed The Great Beyond due out Nov. 13, and director David Robert Mitchell’s high-concept dinosaur feature The End of Oak Street arriving Aug. 16, both from Warner Bros. It’s also attached to produce the 2028 Dr. Seuss adaptation Oh, The Places You’ll Go from directors Jon M. Chu and Jill Culton.

While J.J. Abrams may not be the hottest name in Hollywood anymore, the name still carries tremendous weight and power. The days of their highest flight, though, are likely over, and room is being made at the top for the next juggernaut.