A North Texas city is set to play a Hollywood role with a $50 million film-and-TV production soundstage underway this year as part of larger plans for a bigger campus.
Filmmaker Angel Gracia, best known for his 2011 feature film "From Prada to Nada" and his commercial work for Fortune 500 firms such as Toyota and Coca-Cola, has cast what he has described as "a city within a city" studio campus in Mansfield, Texas, a municipality about 20 miles southeast of downtown Fort Worth.
Gracia is leading the project through Super Studios, an affiliate of Creative Tank based in Santa Clarita, California. The idea is to build real commercial buildings — housing, restaurants and bars — that can double as the backdrop for productions.
Super Studios has filed a state work permit outlining the film studio project with Texas officials, a move echoed by the firm with the city of Mansfield last week. The permit was filed after Mansfield Economic Development Corp. sold Super Studios 21.47-acres of land for the project at 561 Easy Drive for $1 in 2025, a city spokesperson told CoStar News.
In negotiating with Gracia's Super Studios, the city's economic development arm had its own contingencies, with the land deal requiring that construction begin in the next year, officials said during the group's board of directors meeting in October, or ownership would revert back to the city-affiliated group.
Along with the land deal, Mansfield is also expected to reimburse 100% of the impact fees paid to the city for the initial phase of work upon it receiving a certificate of occupancy, the city spokesperson told CoStar News. No additional incentives were given by the city.
The project could qualify for state incentives. In September, the state of Texas expanded its incentive program for film production, rolling out $1.5 billion in funds for filmmakers seeking to produce films in the Lone Star State in the next decade, helping it compete for business from Hollywood and New York.
Those incentives helped film director and producer Taylor Sheridan's SGS Studios set up a soundstage campus in nearby Fort Worth. The location helped with recent filming of "Landman" and "Lioness" episodes.
Like Sheridan's studio project, Gracia has outlined big plans, specifically, a 75-acre "AI-powered ecosystem" in Mansfield. The hub is designed to include production soundstages, AI offices and a data center, along with "on-site, camera-ready housing, hotels, restaurants" and an adjacent trade school expected to train the next generation of creators," he said on the studio website.
Gracia's development plans come three years after the city of Mansfield originally greenlit the plans in February 2023. Super Studios appears to be raising funds for the project, ranging from $10,000 to $2 million to build the 81,000-square-foot initial phase of the project set to open in 2027.
Super Studios officials said on a LinkedIn post seeking investors that the project isn't "another soul-less warehouse pretending to be a creative studio with nowhere in sight to hang out and be creative.
"It’s a real estate play with a twist — a camera-ready smart city with a pulse, designed by real creators for creators — complete with restaurants, bars, coffee shops, condos, retail, theaters, gaming, and a trade school training the next generation — not in theory, but in practice, on set, where the real lessons happen," executives added in the post about Super Studios, which values itself at $175 million as outlined in fundraising documents.
The newly filed state work permit comes years after Super Studios initially unveiled a $750 million, 75-acre so-called "city within a city" with the help of the city of Mansfield, which greenlit the project in February 2023, according to media reports. Super Studios did not immediately respond to an emailed media request from CoStar News.