Everything about Warner Brothers totally explained
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (or
Warner Bros.,
Warner Bros. Pictures) is one of the world's largest
producers of
film and
television entertainment.
It is a
subsidiary of
Time Warner, with its headquarters in
Burbank, California. Warner Bros. has several subsidiary companies, including Warner Bros. Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures,
Warner Bros. Records,
Warner Bros. Television,
Warner Bros. Animation,
Warner Home Video,
DC Comics, and
New Line Cinema. Warner owns half of
The CW Television Network.
Founded in 1918 by Polish immigrants, Warner Bros. is the third-oldest American movie studio in continuous operation, after
Paramount Pictures, founded in 1912 as Famous Players, and
Universal Studios, also founded in 1912.
History
1903–1925: Founding
The corporate name honors the four founding Warner brothers,
Harry Warner (1881–1958),
Albert Warner (1883–1967),
Sam Warner (1887–1927) and
Jack L. Warner (1892–1978), Polish Jewish brothers who emigrated from
Poland to
Ontario,
Canada. The three elder brothers began in the exhibition business in 1903, having acquired a projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. They opened their first theatre, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1903. (The original theater is still standing, and is being renovated as the centerpiece of the ongoing downtown revitalization in New Castle, hoping to attract tourists.
(External Link
)) In 1904, the Warners founded the
Pittsburgh-based
Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company (the precursor to Warner Bros. Pictures) to distribute films. Within a few years this led to the distribution of pictures across a four-state area. In 1912 Harry Warner hired an auditor named
Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of
World War I they'd begun producing films, and in 1918 the brothers opened the Warner Bros. studio on
Sunset Boulevard in
Hollywood. Sam and Jack Warner produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert Warner and their auditor and now controller
Paul Ashley Chase handled finance and distribution in
New York. On April 4, 1923, they formally incorporated as
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
The first important deal for the company was the acquisition of the rights to
Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play,
The Gold Diggers from theatrical impresario
David Belasco. However, what really put Warner Bros. on the Hollywood map was a dog,
Rin Tin Tin, brought from
France after
World War I by an American soldier. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the short
Where the North Begins More success would also come for the studio after they hired German director Ernst Lubitsch as the head director for the studio as well;
Despite the success Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch gave the studio, they still were unable to achieve
star power. As a result, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in their upcoming film
Beau Brummell. like The Marriage Circle, Beau Brummell was also able to make it to the New York Times Ten Best list for the year 1924 as well. As a result, Harry Warner- while speaking at a oonvention of 1,500 independent exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin- and was able to successfully convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000.00 in newspaper advertising. The action benfited Warner Bros.,
1925–1935: Sound, color, style
In 1925, at the urging of Sam Warner, the Warners agreed to expand their operations by adding
synchronized sound to their productions. The Warners then signed a contract with the sound engineer company
Western Electric and established
Vitaphone. In 1926, Vitaphone began making films with music and effects tracks, most notably, in the feature
Don Juan; the film was silent, but it featured a large number of Vitaphone at the beginning. Don Juan-which featured Vitaphone sound shorts at the beginning of the film- was a success at the box office, but wasn't able to match the expensive budget the Warners put into it's production as well. and would revolutionize the business:
The Jazz Singer, starring
Al Jolson. The movie was a sensation, launching the era of "
talking pictures" and banishing
silent movies. However, the brothers couldn't make it to the premiere of
The Jazz Singer, as Sam had died and the brothers were at his funeral.
Thanks to the success of
The Jazz Singer, the studio was flushed with cash. Al Jolson's next film for the company,
The Singing Fool, was also very successful able to rank in more money for the studio as well with the very successful 1928 film
The Singing Fool. In 1928, as a result of this success, the Warners were able to successfully acquire the Stanley Corporation, which was a major theater chain at the time. This gave them a share in rival
First National Pictures, of which Stanley owned one-third. In a bidding war with
William Fox, Warner bought more First National shares on September 13, 1928;
In the fall of 1929, the Warners gained complete control of First National, when Harry purchased the company's remaining one-third share from Fox The Justice Department agreed to allow the purchase if First National was maintained as a separate company. But when the depression hit, Warner asked for and got permission to merge the two studios; soon afterward Warner Bros. moved to the First National lot in
Burbank. Though the companies merged, Justice required Warner to produce and release a few films each year under the First National name until 1938. For thirty years, certain Warner productions would be identified (mainly for tax purposes) as 'A Warner Bros. - First National Picture.'
In addition, as
The Great Depression progressed into the year 1931, people became unable to afford the price for movie tickets, and as a result, Warner Bros. began to lose profits Despite the film's expensive budget, Noah's Ark was able to be a make a profit for the studio at the box office. In 1929, the Warner the successful film
On with the Show (1929), the first all-color all-talking feature. This was followed by
Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929) which proved to be arguably the studio's most popular film of the year. (It continued to be so popular that it played in theatres until 1939). The success of these two color pictures caused a color revolution (just as the first all-talkie had created one for talkies). The Warner Brothers released a large number of color films in 1929-1931. The following were features photographed entirely in
Technicolor:
The Show of Shows (1929),
Sally (1929),
Bright Lights (1930),
Golden Dawn (1930),
Hold Everything (1930),
Song of the Flame (1930),
Song of the West (1930),
The Life of the Party (1930),
Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930),
Under A Texas Moon (1930),
The Bride of the Regiment (1930),
Viennese Nights (1931),
Woman Hungry (1931),
Kiss Me Again (1931),
Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931),
Manhattan Parade (1932). In addition to these, scores of features were released with
Technicolor sequences as well as a numerous variety of short subjects. The majority of these color films were musicals.
By 1931 the country had grown so tired of musicals that the studio was forced to cut the numbers of many of the productions and advertise them as straight comedies. The public had begun to associate musicals with color and thus the movie studios began to abandon its use. Warner Brothers had a contract with
Technicolor to produce two more pictures in that process. As a result, the first mysteries in color were produced and released by the studio:
Doctor X (1932) and
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933).
In February of 1933, Warner Bros., however, would produce a very successfull musical film that saved the company from bankruptcy,
42nd Street. In the wake of 42nd Street's success, musicals were able to bring the studio profits once again. These new musicals featured
Ruby Keeler and
Dick Powell as the stars, and were mostly directed by
Busby Berkeley. By the end of 1935, however, people would again get tired of Warner Bros. musicals. Following Little Caesar, the studio would also release another successful gangster film,
The Public Enemy. and also further convinced the Warners to make more gangster films as well. because of this economic rebound, box office profits for Warner Bros. existed once again. As a result, the Warner Brothers turned out a number of historical pictures from around 1935 in order to avoid confrontations with the Breen office.
After Zanuck was succeeded by
Hal B. Wallis in 1933, and the
Hays code began to be enforced in 1935, the studio was forced to abandon this realistic approach in order to produce more moralistic idealized pictures. The studio naturally turned to historical dramas which wouldn't cause any problems with the censors. Other offerings included
melodramas (or 'women's pictures'),
swashbucklers, and adaptations of best-sellers, with stars like
Bette Davis,
Olivia de Havilland,
Paul Muni and
Errol Flynn. This period also saw the disappearance of a large number of actors and actresses that had characterized the realistic
Pre-Code era but who were not suited to the new trend into moral and idealized pictures. The Warner Bros. had remained a top studio in Hollywood since the dawn of talkies, but this changed after 1935 as other studios, notably
MGM, quickly overshadowed the prestige and glamor that had previously characterized Warner Bros. However, in the late 1930's, Bette Davis would also become a top star at Warner Bros, and was even dubbed as "The Fifth Warner Brother". James Cagney would also leave Warner Bros. after starring in the hit film
Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1942 as well
1930: Birth of Warner's cartoons
Warner's cartoon unit had its roots in the independent
Harman-Ising studio. From 1930 to 1933,
Disney alumni
Hugh Harman and
Rudolf Ising produced a series of musical cartoons for
Leon Schlesinger, who sold the shorts to Warner. Harman and Ising introduced their character
Bosko in the first
Looney Tunes cartoon,
Sinkin' in the Bathtub, and created a sister series,
Merrie Melodies, in 1931.
Harman and Ising broke away from Schlesinger in 1933 due to a contractual dispute, taking Bosko with them. As a result, Schlesinger started his own studio,
Leon Schlesinger Productions, which continued with the
Merrie Melodies while starting production on
Looney Tunes starring
Buddy, a Bosko clone. By the end of the decade, a new Schlesinger production team, including directors
Friz Freleng,
Tex Avery,
Robert Clampett, and
Chuck Jones had been formed. Schlesinger's staff developed a fast-paced, irreverent style that made their cartoons immensely popular world-wide.
Warner bought Schlesinger's cartoon unit in 1944, and in subsequent decades characters such as
Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck,
Tweety Bird, and
Porky Pig became central to the company's image. Bugs in particular remains a mascot to Warner Bros' various divisions and Six Flags (which Time Warner previously owned).
Post–World War II: Changing hands
The record attendance figures of the
World War II years made the Warner brothers rich. The gritty Warner image of the 1930s gave way to a glossier look, especially in women's pictures starring Davis, de Havilland and
Joan Crawford. The 1940s also saw the rise of
Humphrey Bogart from supporting player to major star. In the post-war years, the Warners continued to create new stars, like
Lauren Bacall and
Doris Day.
On
January 5,
1948, Warner offered the first color
newsreel, covering the
Tournament of Roses Parade and the
Rose Bowl Game.
Warner was a party to the
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. anti-trust case of the 1940s. This action, brought by the
Justice Department and the
Federal Trade Commission, claimed that the five integrated studio-theater chain combinations restrained competition. The
Supreme Court heard the case in 1948, and ruled for the government. As a result Warner and four other major studios were forced to separate production from exhibition. Early in 1953, the Warner theater holdings were spun off as
Stanley Warner Theaters. With no more theaters to fill there was no need to produce thirty pictures a year, and no need for expensive contract-actors or for costly staff. After fifty years in the business the Warners saw the system winding down, and agreed to sell the studio to a bank-led syndicate. Only after the deal was completed in 1956 did elder brothers Harry and Albert Warner learn that the leading investor in the bank's syndicate was youngest brother Jack, who now had control of what had been a family business. This led to a rupture in family relations. For the rest of their lives the brothers didn't speak to one another, but Jack was solely in charge at Warner Bros. Pictures.
In February 1956, Warner Brothers sold world negative rights to 784 features and 1,800 shorts filmed before 1948 to be shown on television by
Associated Artists Productions.
New owners
Warner Bros. rebounded in the late 1950s, specializing in adaptations of popular plays like
The Bad Seed (1956),
No Time for Sergeants (1958), and
Gypsy (1962). There was also a successful television unit run by
William T. Orr, Jack Warner's son-in-law, offering popular series like
Maverick (1957–62) and
77 Sunset Strip (1958–64). Already the owner of extensive music-publishing holdings, in 1958 the studio launched
Warner Bros. Records. By the mid-1960s, motion picture production was in decline. There were few studio-produced films and many more co-productions (for which Warner provided facilities, money, and distribution), and pickups of independently made pictures.
In 1967, Jack gave in to advancing age and the changing times, selling control of the studio and its music business for $78 million to
Seven Arts Productions, run by the Canadian investors Elliot and Kenneth Hyman, whose
Associated Artists Productions had once owned the pre-1948 Warner film library. The company, including the studio, was renamed
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.
Two years later the Hymans accepted a cash-and-stock offer from an odd conglomerate called
Kinney National Company. Kinney started as a parking garage mobster
Emmanuel Kimmel won in a poker game before expanding by merging with a chain of funeral parlors, office cleaners, and a Hollywood talent agency,
Ashley-Famous. It was
Ted Ashley who led Kinney head
Steve Ross to the purchase of Warners, and Ashley became the new head of the studio, and the name was changed to Warner Bros., Inc.
Although the moviegoing audience 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, among them
Paul Newman,
Robert Redford,
Barbra Streisand, and
Clint Eastwood, carrying the studio successfully through the 1970s and 1980s. Warners also made major profits on films built around the characters of
Superman and
Batman, owned by Warners subsidiary
DC Comics.
Abandoning the mundane parking lots and funeral homes, the re-focused 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 its acquiring of video game company
Atari in 1976, and later the
Six Flags theme parks.
From 1971 until the end of 1987, Warner's international distribution operations were a joint venture with
Columbia Pictures, and in some countries, this joint venture also distributed films from other companies (like
EMI Films and
Cannon Films in the UK). Warner ended the venture in 1988 and joined up with
Walt Disney Pictures, this joint venture lasted until 1993, when Disney created Buena Vista International.
To the surprise of many, flashy, star-driven Warner Communications merged in 1989 with the white-shoe publishing company
Time Inc. Though Time and its magazines claimed a higher tone, it was the Warner Bros. film and music units which provided the profits. However, the
Time Warner merger was almost derailed when
Paramount Communications (Formerly
Gulf+Western, later sold to
Viacom), launched a $12.2 billion dollar hostle bid for Time Inc., forcing Time to acquire Warner for $14.9 billion dollar cash/stock offer. Paramount responded with a lawsuit filed in
Delaware court to break up the merger. Paramount lost both the case and the appeal and the merger proceeded.
In 1997, Time Warner sold the Six Flags unit. The takeover of Time Warner in 2000 by then-high-flying
AOL didn't prove a good match, and following the collapse in "dot-com" stocks, the AOL name was banished from the corporate nameplate.
1995–present
In 1995, Warner and station-owner
Tribune Company of
Chicago launched
The WB Network, finding a niche market in teenagers. The WB's early programming included an abundance of teenage fare like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Smallville and
Dawson's Creek. Two extremely successful family dramas,
7th Heaven and
Charmed also helped bring The WB into the spotlight, with Charmed going for 8 seasons and being the longest running drama with female leads and 7th Heaven going for 11 seasons and being the longest running family drama and longest running show for The WB. In 2006 Warner and
CBS Corporation decided to close the The WB and CBS's
UPN and jointly launch
The CW Television Network.
In the late 1990s, Warner obtained rights to the
Harry Potter novels, and released feature film adaptations of the
first in 2001, the
second in 2002, the
third in June 2004, the
fourth in November 2005, and the
fifth on
July 11,
2007. The
sixth is slated for November 2008. The seventh and final is announced for 2010.
Over the years, Warner Brothers has had distribution and/or co-production deals with a number of small companies. These include (but are not limited to)
Amblin Entertainment,
Morgan Creek Productions (now working with
Universal Studios),
Regency Enterprises (now working with
20th Century Fox),
Village Roadshow Pictures,
Legendary Pictures,
Silver Pictures (which includes
Dark Castle Entertainment),
The Ladd Company, and
The Geffen Film Company.
On
January 4,
2008, Warner Bros. announced that they'd drop support of
HD DVD in favor of
Blu-ray Disc.HD DVD's would continue to be released through May 2008 (when their contract with the HD DVD promotion group will expire), but only after Blu-ray and DVD releases. This started a chain of events which resulted in HD DVD development and production being halted by
Toshiba on
February 16,
2008, ending the format war.
Warner Bros. and
National CineMedia have formed a partnership to provide pre-feature entertainment and advertising in movie theaters nationwide.
Warner Bros. turns 90 on June 1st 2008.
Film library
Over the years, a series of mergers and acquisitions have helped Warners (the present-day Time Warner subsidiary) to accumulate a diverse collection of movies, cartoons, and television programs.
In the aftermath of the 1948 anti-trust suit, uncertain times led Warners in 1956 to sell its 650 of its pre-1948 films and cartoons to a holding company which became
Associated Artists Productions (AAP). Two years later, AAP sold its holdings to
United Artists (UA), which held them until 1981, when
MGM bought UA.
Three years later,
Turner Broadcasting System, having failed to buy MGM, settled for ownership of the MGM/UA library. This included almost all pre-1986 MGM features (with a few exceptions as noted below), as well as the pre-1948 Warner material. Ownership of the classic Warner films came full-circle when Time Warner bought Turner, although technically they're held by
Turner Entertainment while Warner is responsible for sales and distribution.
These acquisitions, among others, mean that Warner owns almost every film they've made since its inception, excepting certain films Warner merely distributed. Much of the United States Pictures catalog (with certain exceptions, like
Battle of the Bulge, which WB still owns) is now owned by
Republic/
Paramount Pictures (Republic/Paramount also now owns
Cujo, with video licensee
Lions Gate Entertainment handling DVD rights).
Seven years after its 1964 release, rights to
My Fair Lady reverted to
CBS, which had backed the theatrical production, although ironically Warner now owns the DVD rights under license from CBS (Interestingly, 35 years after that, CBS and Warner Bros. formed
The CW Television Network, as mentioned above).
In addition Warner (via Turner) has acquired most of the
Hanna-Barbera Productions library (including the 1982 film
Heidi's Song), alongside most of the pre-1990
Ruby-Spears Productions library. This doesn't including shows based on other licensed properties (ex., the animated versions of
Happy Days,
Mork and Mindy and
Laverne and Shirley are owned by
CBS Paramount Television).
In 2007, Warner Bros. added the
Peanuts/Charlie Brown library to its collection (this includes all the television specials and series outside of the theatrical library, which continues to be owned by CBS and Paramount through
United Feature Syndicate, licensor and owner of the
Peanuts material).
Material owned by WB
In addition to a majority of its own post-1948 film library, WB owns:
Exceptions
WB
Certain of John Wayne's Warner films are owned by Batjac, Wayne's company, as are other Batjac productions not starring Wayne - Paramount owns distribution rights to these films. Warner and Paramount cross-licensed each others' logos for DVD distribution of both these films and the Paramount produced Popeye cartoons Warner controls.
One film by Alfred Hitchcock that was originally released by WB, Rope, is now owned by Universal Studios
One Warner film from the post-1948 era, the 1956 version of Moby Dick, is now owned by UA.
One film that was originally released by Warner in 1957, Sayonara, is now owned by MGM.
The ancillary rights to ITC Entertainment films originally distributed by WB (including The Medusa Touch, Movie Movie, and Capricorn One) are now owned by Granada International, while MGM owns theatrical distribution rights.
Turner
WB/Turner owns theatrical and television rights to Pink Floyd The Wall (while video rights rest with Sony BMG Music Entertainment)
Shanghai Surprise is now owned by Lionsgate;
March of the Wooden Soldiers has now gone back to MGM as a result of their acquisition of former owners The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The original Hal Roach Our Gang shorts distributed by MGM before the studio took control of the series is owned by RHI Entertainment and CBS Television Distribution, while RHI solely owns much of the MGM/Roach shorts and features, with few exceptions.
Frank Capra's film, State of the Union, was released by MGM in 1948, but the rights belonged to Capra's Liberty Films, which was bought out by Paramount Pictures in 1951. In the mid 1950's, Universal Pictures bought the rights to most of Paramount's sound movies released before 1950, which includes State of the Union.
The WB Archives
The University of Southern California Warner Bros. Archives is the largest single studio collection in the world. Donated in 1977 to USC's School of Cinema-Television by Warner Communications, the WBA houses departmental records that detail Warner Bros. activities from the studio's first major feature, My Four Years in Germany (1918), to its sale to Seven Arts in 1968.
UA donated pre-1949 Warner Bros. nitrates to the Library of Congress and post-1951 negatives to UCLA's film library. Most of the company's legal files, scripts and production materials were donated to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Further Information
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