Warner Bros.
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| Warner Bros logo.svg | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | Template:Start date and age[1] |
| Headquarters | 4000 Warner Blvd |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Products |
Films Television Video games |
| Revenue | Template:IncreaseUS$ 12.992 billion (2015)[2] |
| Operating income | Template:IncreaseUS$ 1.416 billion (2015) |
| Employees | Est. 8,000 (2014)[3] |
| Parent | WarnerMedia |
| Website | [1] |
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.), commonly referred to as Warner Bros., is an American entertainment company headquartered in Burbank, California. A subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia, it is one of the "Big Six" major American film studios.
History[edit | edit source]
Founding[edit | edit source]
The company's name originated from the four founding Warner brothers (born Wonskolaser or Wonsal before Anglicization):[4][5] Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner. They emigrated as young children with their parents to Canada from Krasnosielc, Poland.
Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the movie theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the beginning,[6] Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery. They opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903.
When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, and arranged to save it. The owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance.[7]
In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company,[8][9] to distribute films. In 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films. In 1918 they opened the first Warner Brothers Studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, based on a popular book by former ambassador James W. Gerard, was released. On April 4, 1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint,[10] they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. (As late as the 1960s, Warner Bros. claimed 1905 as its founding date.)[11]
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The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, from theatrical impresario David Belasco. However, Rin Tin Tin,[12] a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation.[13] Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins. The movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week.[12] Rin Tin Tin became the studio's top star.[12] Jack nicknamed him "The Mortgage Lifter"[12] and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanuck's career.[14] Zanuck eventually became a top producer[15] and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jack's right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production.[16] More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director;[14] Harry Rapf left the studio to join Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[17] Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle was the studio's most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year.[14]
Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warner's remained a lesser studio.[18] Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel.[18] The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a long-term contract;[19] like The Marriage Circle, Beau Brummell was named one of the ten best films of the year by the Times.[19] By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywood's most successful independent studio,[19] where it competed with "The Big Three" Studios (First National, Paramount Pictures, and MGM).[20] As a result, Harry Warner—while speaking at a convention of 1,500 independent exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—was able to convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000 in newspaper advertising,[21] and Harry saw this as an opportunity to establish theaters in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.[21]
As the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan. With this new money, the Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a nationwide distribution system.[21] In 1925, Warners' also experimented in radio, establishing a successful radio station, KFWB, in Los Angeles.[22]
Warner's cartoons[edit | edit source]
- Main article: Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner's cartoon unit had its roots in the independent Harman and Ising studio. From 1930 to 1933, Disney alumni Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising produced musical cartoons for Leon Schlesinger, who sold them 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.[23]
Harman and Ising broke away from Schlesinger in 1933 due to a contractual dispute, taking Bosko with them to MGM. As a result, Schlesinger started his own studio, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which continued with Merrie Melodies while starting production on Looney Tunes starring Buddy, a Bosko clone. By the end of World War II, a new Schlesinger production team, including directors Friz Freleng (started in 1934), Tex Avery (started in 1935), Frank Tashlin (started in 1936), Bob Clampett (started in 1937), Chuck Jones (started in 1938), and Bob McKimson (started in 1945), was formed. Schlesinger's staff developed a fast-paced, irreverent style that made their cartoons globally popular.
In 1935, Avery directed Porky Pig cartoons that established the character as the studio's first animated star.[24] In addition to Porky, Daffy Duck (who debuted in 1937's Porky's Duck Hunt), Elmer Fudd (Elmer's Candid Camera, 1940), Bugs Bunny (A Wild Hare, 1940), and Tweety (A Tale of Two Kitties, 1942) would achieve star power.[25] By 1942, the Schlesinger studio had surpassed Walt Disney Studios as the most successful producer of animated shorts.[26]
Warner Bros. bought Schlesinger's cartoon unit in 1944 and renamed it Warner Bros. Cartoons. However, the unit was indifferently treated by senior management, beginning with the installation of Edward Selzer as senior producer, whom the creative staff considered an interfering incompetent. Jack Warner had little regard for the company's short film product and reputedly was so ignorant about the animation division of the studio that he was mistakenly convinced that the unit produced cartoons of Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney Productions' flagship character.[27] He sold off the unit's pre-August 1948 library for $3,000 each, which proved a shortsighted transaction in light of its eventual value.[27]
Warner Bros. Cartoons continued, with intermittent interruptions, until 1969 when it was dissolved as the parent company ceased film shorts entirely. Characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, and Porky Pig became central to the company's image in subsequent decades. Bugs in particular remains a mascot to Warner Bros., its various divisions and Six Flags (which Time Warner once owned). The success of the compilation film, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie in 1980, featuring the archived film of these characters prompted Warner Brothers to organize Warner Bros. Animation as a new production division to restart production of original material.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ^ co-owned by New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (the film's producers)
References[edit | edit source]
Footnotes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ "Company history". Warnerbros.com. Retrieved April 9, 2014.
- ↑ "Time Warner Inc. Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2015 Results". Time Warner. 2015.
- ↑ Patten, Dominic; Yamato, Jen. "Warner Bros Layoffs Long Planned But "Accelerated" By Failed Fox Bid". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
- ↑ Warner Sperling, Cass (Director) (2008). The Brothers Warner (DVD film documentary). Warner Sisters, Inc.. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160217043304/http://www.warnersisters.com/ourstore.html.
- ↑ McMorris, Bill (January 29, 2009). "Journey of discovery: Warner documentary the result of a twenty-year effort". Santa Barbara News-Press. Retrieved May 27, 2008. (subscription required (help)).
- ↑ Green, Fitzhugh (1929). The Film Finds Its Toungue. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 41. (subscription required (help)).
- ↑ WQED educational film "Things that are still here", PBS WQED, Pittsburgh, PA
- ↑ "Harry M. Warner film festival named one of thirty two 'premier' events in state". Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. January 31, 2006. Archived from the original on August 17, 2007. Retrieved March 5, 2009.
- ↑ "Progressive Silent Film List". SilentEra.com.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ "Is Fox really 75 this year? Somewhere, the fantastic Mr. (William) Fox begs to differ". New York Post. February 10, 2010. Retrieved June 30, 2012.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ Behlmer (1985), p. xii
- ↑ Thomas46, 47
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ "Theatre Owners Open War on Hays". The New York Times. May 12, 1925. p. 14.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
- ↑ Barrier, Michael (1999). pp.329–333
- ↑ "Porky Pig and the Small Dog". Aharon's Jewish Books and Judaica - Mile Chai City. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved July 9, 2008.
- ↑ "Warner Bros. Studio biography". AnimationUSA.com. Retrieved June 17, 2007.
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Script error: No such module "Footnotes".
Works cited[edit | edit source]
- Behlmer, Rudy (1985). Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951). ISBN 0-670-80478-9.
- Gabler, Neal (1988). An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-56808-X.
- Mordden, Ethan (1988). The Hollywood Studios. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7153-8319-1.
- Sarris, Andrew. 1998. “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet.” The American Talking Film History & Memory, 1927-1949. Oxford University Press. 0-19-513426-5
- Schatz, Robert (1988). The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 0-8050-4666-6.
- Schickel, Richard; Perry, George (2008). You must remember this: The Warner Bros. Story. Philadelphia: Running Press. ISBN 0-7624-3418-X.
- Sklar, Robert (1994). Movie-Made America. New York: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-679-75549-4.
- Thomas, Bob (1990). [[[:Template:Google books]] Clown Prince of Hollywood: The Antic Life and Time of Jack L. Warner] Check
|url=value (help). McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Limited. ISBN 978-0-07-064259-1. - Warner, Jack L.; Jennings, Dean (1964). My First Hundred Years in Hollywood. Random House. ASIN B0007DZSKW. LCCN 65011267. OCLC 1347544.
- ———; Sperling, Cass Warner; Millner, Cork (1998). [[[:Template:Google books]] Hollywood be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story] Check
|url=value (help). University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-0958-2.
External links[edit | edit source]
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