John Mayer And McG Have Bought A Historic Hollywood Studio Lot

First off: This is not a blog post about John Mayer doing something with Mk.gee, the ascendant phenom who played SNL last weekend and who seems like the answer to the question “what if John Mayer was a 28-year-old Bandcamp weirdo right now?” Those seem like they would be friends, and Mayer has in fact said nice things about Mk.gee. Apparently, though, those two are not yet close enough that they’re getting together to buy historic Hollywood studio lots. Instead, that’s something that John Mayer is doing with McG. Different guy.

You know about McG, right? He produced the first Sugar Ray album, and then he transitioned into directing music video like the Offspring’s “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” and Smash Mouth’s “All Star.” From there, he made the Charlie’s Angels movies and then a bunch of shit like Terminator Salvation. His most recent films are all Netflix joints. Anyway, The Hollywood Reporter has a story about how John Mayer and that McG have joined forces to buy the Henson Studios lot from the Jim Henson Company.

The Henson company has owned that studio lot since 2000, which means Jim Henson never actually had anything to do with it. They made much of the 2011 Muppets movie there, and it’s also got a recording studio where John Mayer made his 2021 album Sob Rock. The lot has been around since 1917, and Charlie Chaplin originally built it for his Charlie Chaplin Studios. It was also the headquarters of A&M Records for more than 30 years. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the deal is worth something like $60 million.

Apparently, rumor had it that the Church Of Scientology was planning on buying that studio lot. It turned out that the interested party was actually Fab Factory Studios, a music production company run by the father and son Steven and Shaun Fabos, both prominent Scientologists. Shaun Fabos testified in favor of Danny Masterson in his rape trial. But Fab Factory took too long to close the deal, so Mayer and McG swooped in. As someone who doesn’t have any particular fond feelings about John Mayer or McG, it seems like the good guys won this one. I’d rather have them be in charge of almost anything than those other guys.