Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. or simply
Warner Bros., is one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment. It is currently a
subsidiary of the
Time Warner conglomerate, with headquarters in
Burbank,
California,
USA.
Warner Bros. includes several subsidiary companies, among them Warner Bros. Studios,
Warner Bros. Pictures,
Warner Bros. Television,
Warner Home Video,
DC Comics and
The CW Television Network.
The corporate name honors the four founding Warner brothers, emigrants from
Poland,
Harry Warner (1881–1958),
Albert Warner (1883–1967),
Sam Warner (1887–1927) and
Jack L. Warner (1892–1978). 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.[
1]) 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. By the time of
World War I they had 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 handled finance and distribution in
New York. In
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. Rinty was so popular that he starred in 26 films, beginning with
The Man from Hell's River in
1924, and is credited with making the fledgling studio a success.
As the studio prospered, it gained backing from
Wall Street, and in
1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan. With this new money Warners bought the pioneer
Vitagraph Company which had a nation-wide distribution system. They also plunged into radio, establishing radio stations in several major cities, among them
KFWB in
Los Angeles. Warners also joined the mad race to buy and build theaters.
|
Screenshot from the first all-color all-talking film On with the Show, released by Warner Brothers in 1929. |
At the urging of Sam Warner, the company committed to develop
Vitaphone, and in
1926 began making films with music and effects tracks. When this proved popular, they took the next step and offered, in October
1927 a picture with dialogue, one that 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. But unfortunately, the brothers missed the premiere of
The Jazz Singer due to Sam's funeral.
Flush with cash thanks to the success of
The Jazz Singer, in 1928 Warner bought the Stanley Company, a major theater chain. 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, and gained control in
1929. 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 1928, the Warner Brothers released
Lights of New York, the first all-talking feature. Due to its success, the movie industry converted entirely to sound almost overnight. By the end of 1929, all the major studios were making sound films exclusively. In 1929, the Warner Brothers released
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 the most popular film of that 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 were 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),
Life of the Party (1930),
Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930),
Under A Texas Moon (1930),
The Bride of the Regiment (1930),
Under a Texas Moon (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. Unfortunately, by 1931 the country had grown so tired of musicals that the Warner Brothers were forced to cut the numbers of many of the productions as advertise them as straight comedies. The public had begun to associate musicals with color and thus the movie studios began to abandon its use. Unfortunately, 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).
Under production head
Darryl F. Zanuck, Warners in the
1930s became known for gritty, 'torn from the headlines' pictures that some said glorified
gangsters. Warner stars tended to be tough-talking, working-class types, among them
James Cagney,
Joan Blondell,
Edward G. Robinson and
Barbara Stanwyck. After Zanuck was succeeded by
Hal B. Wallis in
1933, the studio tried for a more sophisticated style, offering
melodramas (or 'women's pictures'),
swashbucklers, and expensive adaptations of best-sellers, with stars like
Bette Davis,
Olivia de Havilland,
Paul Muni and
Errol Flynn. The studio was one of the most prolific producers of
Pre-Code pictures and had a lot of trouble with the censors once they started clamping down on what they considered indecent (around 1934). 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.
Warner's cartoon unit began modestly in
1930 as a free-standing company owned by
Leon Schlesinger. From 1930 to 1933,
Hugh Harman and
Rudolf Ising produced a series of musical cartoons for Schlesinger. They introduced
Bosko in the first
Looney Tunes cartoon. In 1931, Harman and Ising introduced a new series of cartoon entitled:
Merrie Melodies. Both of these series featured jazz soundtracks (recorded by such popular artists as Abe Lyman) with pre-code humor. Harman and Ising left Schlesinger's company in 1933 due to a contractual dispute. As a result, animators such as
Jack King, and
Friz Freleng were hired to produce a series of tame cartoons starring
Buddy. The
Merrie Melodies series also suffered and cartoon produced during these years are quite bland. However, with the arrival of
Tex Avery and the creation of
Termite Terrace, the unit developed a fast-paced, irreverently insane style that made them immensely popular world-wide. Warner bought Schlesinger's cartoon unit in
1944, and in subsequent decades characters such as
Bugs Bunny and
Daffy Duck became central to the company's image.
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. And in the post-war years 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.
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. Even in an argument-prone family like the Warners, this was too much, and led to a rupture in family relations. For the rest of their lives the brothers did not speak to one another. But Jack was solely in charge at Warner Bros. Pictures.
For a time Warner Bros. rebounded, specializing in adaptations of popular plays like
The Bad Seed,
No Time for Sergeants and
Gypsy: A Musical Fable. There was also a successful television unit, offering popular series like
77 Sunset Strip and
Maverick. Already the owner of extensive music-publishing holdings, in
1958 the studio launched
Warner Brothers Records, but by the 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. Originating as a chain of funeral parlors, Kinney had grown by buying service businesses like parking lots, 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, again called Warner Bros. Pictures. Although the movie-going audience had shrunk, Warner's new management believed in the drawing-power of stars, signing co-production deals with the big names of the day, among them
Paul Newman,
Robert Redford,
Barbra Streisand,
John Wayne, and
Clint Eastwood. This star-driven policy carried the studio successfully through the
1970s and
1980s. Abandoning the mundane parking lots and funeral homes, the re-focused Kinney renamed itself in honor of its best-known holding,
Warner Communications. In the
1980s Warner Communications branched out into other business, such as
Atari video games, and the
Six Flags theme parks.
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. In
1997 Time Warner sold the
Six Flags unit. The takeover of
Time Warner in
2000 by then-high-flying
AOL did not prove a good match, and following the collapse in "dot-com" stocks, the AOL name was banished from the corporate nameplate.
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 angsty teenage fare like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
7th Heaven and
Dawson's Creek. 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, Warners obtained rights to the
Harry Potter novels, and released feature film adaptations of the
first in 2001, the
second in 2002, the
third in 2004, and the
fourth in November 2005. The
fifth is
slated for June 2007.
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 all pre-
1986 MGM features 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 are 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 inception (excepting certain films Warner merely distributed, such as the United States Pictures catalog, except for
Battle of the Bulge, which WB still owns). Certain of John Wayne's Warner films are owned by
Batjac, Wayne's company. Seven years after its 1964 release, rights to
My Fair Lady reverted to
CBS, which had backed the theatrical production, although Warner now owns the DVD rights under license from CBS. (Interestingly, 35 years after that, CBS and Warner Bros. will form
The CW Television Network, as mentioned above.)
As noted, Warner owns all pre-
1986 MGM titles and cartoons; the US/Canadian and Australian rights to a majority of the
RKO Radio Pictures library; the 1933-1957
Popeye theatrical animated shorts; and a portion of United Artists material (most of this under its
Turner subsidiary). In addition Warner has acquired most of the
Hanna-Barbera Productions television cartoons (as well as
Heidi's Song, but not including cartoons based off
Marvel Comics properties which are owned by
the Walt Disney Company, as well as shows based off
Happy Days,
Mork and Mindy and
Laverne and Shirley which are owned by
CBS Paramount Television; among other licensed properties); most of
Lorimar's television and film holdings (including most of the
Allied Artists /
Monogram and post-1974
Rankin/Bass libraries, as well as several films made by Lorimar themselves which were released originally by
Paramount Pictures, among other studios); the National General Pictures library (except those produced with Cinema Center Films, which are owned by CBS and Paramount Pictures); most ancillary rights to
Castle Hill Productions library (which includes early UA material); and a few films released by others, such as the
1956 version of
Around the World in Eighty Days; the 1971 film
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory; most of the pre-1990
Saul Zaentz film library; the 1978-1981
Orion Pictures library; the non-Japan rights to the first three
Pokémon films; and
Castle Rock Entertainment films made after Turner acquired Castle Rock (except the Region 1 rights to
The Story of Us and the international rights to
The American President owned by Universal).
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.
The first logo used was a static shield with the letters WB on the bottom and a picture of the Warner Bros. studio on the top. From 1929 to 1933, the logo seems to have been completely abandoned. Occasionally, however, (mostly in features from 1929 and 1930) a First National film would bear the old animated logo for that studio. During these years, feature films opened with the main title along with the
Vitaphone logo. The Warner Bros. logo was used from 1931 to 1933 on the title cards of cartoons. The Warner Bros. logo re-introduced in live-action films around 1934. The current WB logo shows a reflection of the WB studio, which then slowly spins away from the camera revealing the WB logo. The music in the background of this card is "
As Time Goes By", popularized in the 1942 Warner Bros. film
Casablanca.
Gallery
Image:Warner_logo_1927-1935.jpg|Warner Bros. logo from 1927-1929Image:WBLogo.jpg|Vitaphone logo used from 1929-1933Image:Warner_Logo_1935-1940.JPG|Warner Bros. logo from 1934-1939Image:Warner_Logo_1940-1984.JPG|Warner Bros. logo from 1940-1983Image:Warner_Logo_1984-1998.JPG|Warner Bros. logo from 1984-1997Image:Warner Bros logo.jpg|Warner Bros. logo from 1998-presentParodies
There have also been many parodies/modifications of the logo, most made for the film:
*The film
Scooby-Doo has the regular logo, followed by an immediate bite in it. You then hear Scooby's voice, followed by him putting a new logo, which looks similar to his "SD" dog tag. Instead of the "An AOL Time Warner Company" at the bottom, it says "A Mystery, Inc. Company".
*The trailer for the movie
Corpse Bride featured the WB shield as a doorknob.
*The trailer for
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory featured the WB and Village Roadshow Pictures logos spinning in a vat of chocolate.
*For
The Polar Express, it showed the shield covered with
snow.
* Mordden, Ethan.
The Hollywood Studios. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
* Schatz, Robert.
The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
* Sklar, Robert.
Movie-Made America. New York: Vintage, 1994.
* Warner, Jack L.
My First Hundred Years in Hollywood.* Gabler, Neal.
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. New York: Crown Publishers, 1988.
*
Big Ten (movie studios)*
WarnerBros.com*
A Warner Brothers Retrospective
