Warner Bros. Pictures (commonly known as simply Warner Bros.; informally abbreviated as WBP) is an American film studio and distribution arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself a division of Skydance Corporation. Headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, it is one of the major American film studios and is the third oldest film studio in the United States still in operation, after Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, both founded in 1912. Animated films produced by Warner Bros. Pictures Animation are also released under the studio banner.
Warner Bros. Pictures was founded on April 4, 1923, by the brothers Harry Warner, Albert Warner, Sam Warner, and Jack L. Warner. In addition to producing its own films, the studio handles filmmaking operations, theatrical distribution, marketing and promotion for films produced and released by other Warner Bros. labels.
Warner Bros. Pictures' most commercially successful film franchises include the Ocean's trilogy, Superman, Harry Potter, Batman, The Hobbit trilogy, The Matrix, Monsterverse, Mad Max, and Dune. Additionally, the studio's library includes many individual films such as The Exorcist, The Towering Inferno, 300, I Am Legend, Inception, Interstellar, American Sniper, It, Ready Player One, Barbie, and A Minecraft Movie, with five of the eleven films being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and all of them became among the highest grossing films of all time. History
Foundation, diversification and establishment (1910–1967)
The studio's predecessor (and the modern Warner Bros. media company and Warner Bros. Entertainment as a whole) was founded in 1910 as the Warner Features Company in New Castle, Pennsylvania, by filmmaker Sam Warner and his business partners and brothers, Harry, Albert, and Jack. They produced their first film, the Peril of the Plains in 1912, which Sam directed for the St. Louis Motion Picture Company. In 1918, during World War I, the four Warner brothers produced an adaptation of the book My Four Years in Germany by James W. Gerard as their first full-scale picture, which was a box office hit and helped the brothers to establish themselves as a prestige studio.
On April 4, 1923, Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. was officially established, as the brothers focused entirely on the motion picture industry. In 1927, Warner Bros. Pictures revolutionized the film industry by releasing its first sound film (or "talkie"), The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.
In the aftermath of the 1948 antitrust suit, uncertain times led Warner Bros. to sell most of its pre-1950WB retained a pair of features from 1949 that they merely distributed, and all short subjects released on or after September 1, 1948; in addition to all cartoons released in August 1948 films and cartoons to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) in 1956. Two years later, a.a.p. was sold to United Artists (UA), which owned the company until 1981, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) acquired UA.
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (1967–1969)
In November 1966, Jack L. Warner acknowledged advancing age and changing times, selling 32% of control of the studio and music business to Seven Arts Productions for $32 million. (Seven Arts Productions was run by Canadian investors Elliot and Kenneth Hyman.) Eventually the company, including the studio, was renamed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts on July 14, 1967.
Kinney National / Warner Communications era (1969–1990) Two years later the Hymans accepted a cash-and-stock offer from Kinney National Company for more than $64 million. In 1967, Kinney had previously acquired DC Comics (then officially known as National Periodical Publications), as well as a Hollywood talent agency, Ashley-Famous,William Poundstone, Fortune's Formula whose founder Ted Ashley led Kinney head Steve Ross to purchase Warner Bros.
Ashley-Famous was soon spun off due to antitrust laws prohibiting the simultaneous ownership of a film studio and a talent agency. Ashley became the studio head and changed the name to Warner Bros., Inc. once again. Jack Warner was outraged by the Hymans's sale, and decided to move into independent production (most successfully with 1776 at Columbia). He retired in 1973 and eventually died from serious health complications of heart inflammation in September 1978.
Although movie audiences had shrunk, Warner's new management believed in the drawing power of stars, signing co-production deals with several of the biggest names of the day, including Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, and Clint Eastwood, carrying the studio successfully through the 1970s and 1980s. Its hits in the early 1970s included those starring the aforementioned actors, along with comedian Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, John Boorman's Deliverance, and the Martin Scorsese productions Mean Streets and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Warner Bros. also made major profits on films and television shows built around the characters of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash owned by Warner Bros. subsidiary DC Comics. The 1970s also saw Warner Bros. Records become one of the major record labels worldwide, and that company gained sister labels in Elektra Records and Atlantic Records. In 1971, Filmation and Warner Bros. entered into an agreement to produce and distribute cartoons for film and television, with its television subsidiary handling worldwide television rights.
In late 1973, Warner Bros. announced that it had partnered with 20th Century Fox to co-produce a single film: producer Irwin Allen's The Towering Inferno. Both studios found themselves owning the rights to books about burning skyscrapers: Warner was attempting to adapt Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson's The Glass Inferno and Fox was preparing an adaptation of Richard Martin Stern's The Tower. Allen insisted on a meeting with the heads of both studios and announced that as Fox was already in the lead with their property it would be preferable to lump the two together as a single film, with Fox owning domestic rights and Warner Bros. handling the film's foreign distribution. The resulting partnership resulted in the second-highest-grossing film of 1974, turning profits for both studios, and influencing future co-productions between major studios. Although Allen would make further films for Warner Bros., he would not repeat the success he had with The Towering Inferno.
Abandoning parking lots and funeral homes, the refocused Kinney renamed itself in honor of its best-known holding, Warner Communications. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Warner Communications branched out into other business, such as video game company Atari, Inc. in 1976, and later the Six Flags theme parks.
In 1972, in a cost-cutting move, Warner and Columbia formed a third company called The Burbank Studios (TBS). They would share the Warner lot in Burbank. Both studios technically became production entities, giving TBS day-to-day responsibility for studio grounds and upkeep. The Columbia Ranch (about a mile north of Warner's lot) was part of the deal.
The Warner–Columbia relationship was acrimonious, but the reluctance of both studios to approve or spend money on capital upgrades that might only help the other did have the unintended consequence of preserving the Warner lot's primary function as a filmmaking facility while it produced relatively little during the 1970s and 1980s. One famous film that was filmed at the Warner lot during this era was Blade Runner (1982) by director Ridley Scott. Most films produced after 1968 were filmed on location after the failure of Camelot was partially attributed to the fact it was set in England but obviously filmed in Burbank. With control over its own lot tied up in TBS, Warner ultimately retained a significant portion of its backlot, while Fox sold its backlot to create Century City, Universal turned part of its backlot into a theme park and shopping center, and Disney replaced its backlot with office buildings and moved its animation department to an industrial park in Glendale.
In 1989, a solution to the situation became evident when Warner Bros. acquired Lorimar-Telepictures and gained control of the former MGM studio lot in Culver City, and that same year, Sony bought Columbia Pictures. Sony was flush with cash and Warner Bros. now had two studio lots. In 1990, TBS ended when Sony bought the MGM lot from Warner and moved Columbia to Culver City. However, Warner kept the Columbia Ranch, now known as the Warner Bros. Ranch.
Robert A. Daly joined Warner Bros. on December 1, 1980, taking over from Ted Ashley. His titles were chairman of the board and Co-Chief Executive Officer. One year later, he was named chairman of the board and chief executive officer and appointed Terry Semel President and Chief Operating Officer. Warner Bros. Animation was established in March, 1980.
As part of Time Warner / Time Warner Entertainment / AOL Time Warner / TimeWarner (1990–2018)
Warner Communications merged on January 10, 1990 with white-shoe publishing company Time Inc. Time claimed a higher level of prestige, while Warner Bros. provided the profits. The Time-Warner merger was almost derailed when Paramount Communications (formerly Gulf+Western, later sold to the first incarnation of Viacom), launched a $12.2 billion hostile takeover bid for Time Inc., forcing Time to acquire Warner with a $14.9 billion cash/stock offer. Paramount responded with a lawsuit filed in Delaware court to break up the merger. Paramount lost and the merger proceeded. Time Warner formed Time Warner Entertainment in June 1992 by merging its entertainment operations for the first time.
In 1993, Warner Bros. Family Entertainment was established to produce various family-oriented films, plus animated films. The Family Entertainment label was made dormant in 2011. In 1994, Jon Peters, whose Peters Entertainment company had a non-exclusive deal at Sony Pictures, received another non-exclusive, financing deal at Warner Bros., citing that then president Terry Samel and producer Peters were friends.
In 1995, Warner Bros. and television station owner Tribune Company of Chicago launched The WB Television Network, seeking a large share of the niche market of teenage viewers. The WB's early programming included an abundance of teenage fare, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill. Two dramas produced by Spelling Television, 7th Heaven and Charmed, helped bring The WB into the spotlight. Charmed lasted eight seasons, becoming the longest-running drama with female leads. 7th Heaven ran for eleven seasons and was the longest-running family drama and longest-running show for the network. In 2006, Warner Bros. and CBS Corporation decided to close The WB and CBS's UPN and jointly launch The CW Television Network.
On October 10, 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting System, which allowed Warner Bros. to regain the rights to their pre-1950You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (2008), p. 255.WB retained a pair of features from 1949 that they merely distributed, and all short subjects released on or after September 1, 1948; in addition to all cartoons released in August 1948. film library, The Turner deal also brought two separate film companies, New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment, both of which were eventually integrated into Warner Bros. Entertainment, formed on December 3, 2002. The Turner deal also gave Time Warner access to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)'s pre-May 1986 library and the pre-1991 libraries of animation studios Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears. The merger brought projects such as City of Angels and You've Got Mail into the studio. Later that year, Warner Bros. partnered with PolyGram Filmed Entertainment to distribute various movies produced by Castle Rock Entertainment.