Back in 1928 Mack "The King of Comedy" Sennett - the man who gave us Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields and The Keystone Cops - built a state-of-the-art film studio in the San Fernando Valley to support his increasing productions. This studio would eventually give the area its name: Studio City.

The Sennett Studio housed offices, a projection room and film editing facility, a film library, dressing rooms, wardrobe space, a parking garage and, of course, a large sound stage (with a swimming pool beneath the floor.) But the opulence of the Sennett Studio was to be short lived. Just five years after it opened, in 1933, the great depression ground the Sennett Studio into bankruptcy.

The buildings remained and soon became a haven for independent producers. Herbert J. Yates watched as the number of independents grew and eventually thought to consolidate Mascot Pictures, Consolidated Film Industries and Monogram Pictures into a new venture known as Republic Pictures Corporation. Sennett Studio would live and grow again as the new Republic Studios.