Paramount Pictures

Famous Players Film Company

Paramount is the fifth oldest surviving film studio in the world; after the French studios Gaumont Film Company (1895) and Pathé (1896), Titanus (1904), followed by the Nordisk Film company (1906), and Universal Studios (1912).^[1] It is the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.^[2]

Paramount Pictures' first logo, based on a design by its co-founder William Wadsworth Hodkinson, used from 1914 to 1967.

Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company. Hungarian-born founder Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants.^[7] With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time (leading to the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays"). By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success. Its first film was Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, which starred Sarah Bernhardt.

That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature Play Company with money borrowed from his brother-in-law, Samuel Goldfish, later known as Samuel Goldwyn. The Lasky company hired as their first employee a stage director with virtually no film experience, Cecil B. DeMille, who would find a suitable site in Hollywood. This place was a rented old horse barn converted into a production facility with an enlarged open-air stage located between Vine Street, Selma Avenue, Argyle Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. It was later known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn.^[8] In 1914, their first feature film, The Squaw Man was released.

On May 8, 1914, Paramount Pictures Corporation (previously known as Progressive Pictures) was founded by a Utah theatre owner, W. W. Hodkinson, who had bought and merged five smaller firms.^[9] On May 15, 1914, Hodkinson signed a five-year contract with the Famous Players Film Company, the Lasky Company and Bosworth, Inc. to distribute their films.^[10] Actor, director and producer Hobart Bosworth had started production of a series of Jack London movies. Paramount was the first successful nationwide distributor; until this time, films were sold on a statewide or regional basis which had proved costly to film producers. Also, Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned while Paramount was a corporation.

Famous Players-Lasky

In 1916, Zukor engineered a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and Paramount. Zukor and Lasky bought Hodkinson out of Paramount, and merged the three companies into one. The new company Lasky and Zukor founded on June 28, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, although it continued to use the name "Paramount," as well. As a result, it became the largest film company at the time with a value of $12.5 million.^[11] The corporation was able to grow quickly, with Lasky and his partners Goldwyn and DeMille running the production side, Hiram Abrams in charge of distribution, and Zukor making great plans. With only the exhibitor-owned First National as a rival, Famous Players-Lasky and its "Paramount Pictures" soon dominated the business.^[12] The fusion was finalized on November 7, 1916.^[13]

Lasky's original studio (a.k.a. "The Barn") as it appeared in the mid-1920s. The Taft building, built in 1923, is visible in the background.

Because Zukor believed in stars, he signed and developed many of the leading early stars, including Mary Pickford, Marguerite Clark, Pauline Frederick, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, and Wallace Reid. With so many important players, Paramount was able to introduce "block booking", which meant that an exhibitor who wanted a particular star's films had to buy a year's worth of other Paramount productions. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, but which led the government to pursue it on antitrust grounds for more than twenty years.^[14]

By the mid-1920s, the old Lasky-DeMille barn property was not big enough to handle all of the studios' West Coast productions.^[15] On January 5, 1926, Lasky reached an agreement to buy the Robert Brunton Studios, a 26-acre facility owned by United Pictures and located at 5451 Marathon Street, for US$1 million.^[16] On March 29, the company began an eight-month building program to renovate the existing facilities and erect new ones.^[17] On May 8, Lasky finally moved operations from the Sunset and Vine lot to the new building. At present, those facilities are still part of the Paramount Pictures headquarters. Zukor hired independent producer B. P. Schulberg, an unerring eye for new talent, to run the new West Coast operations.

On April 1, 1927, the company name was changed to Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation.^[18] In September 1927, the Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation studio in Astoria (New York City) was temporarily closed with the objective of equipping it with the technology for the production of sound films.^[19][20] In the same year, Paramount began releasing Inkwell Imps, animated cartoons produced by Max and Dave Fleischer's Fleischer Studios in New York City. The Fleischers, veterans in the animation industry, were among the few animation producers capable of challenging the prominence of Walt Disney. The Paramount newsreel series Paramount News ran from 1927 to 1957. Paramount was also one of the first Hollywood studios to release what were known at that time as "talkies", and in 1929, released their first musical, Innocents of Paris. Richard A. Whiting and Leo Robin composed the score for the film; Maurice Chevalier starred and sang the most famous song from the film, "Louise".

Publix, Balaban and Katz, Loew's competition and wonder theaters

The driving force behind Paramount's rise was Zukor. He built a chain of nearly 2,000 screens, ran two production studios (in Astoria, New York, now the Kaufman Astoria Studios, and Hollywood, California), and became an early investor in radio, acquiring for the corporation a 50% interest in the new Columbia Broadcasting System in 1928 (selling it within a few years; this would not be the last time Paramount and CBS crossed paths).

By acquiring the successful Balaban & Katz chain in 1926, Zukor gained the services of Barney Balaban (who would eventually become Paramount's president in 1936), his brother A. J. Balaban (who would eventually supervise all stage production nationwide and produce talkie shorts), and their partner Sam Katz (who would run the Paramount-Publix theatre chain in New York City from the thirty-five-story Paramount Theatre Building on Times Square).

Detail of Publix Theatre logo on what is now Indiana Repertory Theatre.

Balaban and Katz had developed the Wonder Theater concept, first publicized around 1918 in Chicago. The Chicago Theater was created as a very ornate theater and advertised as a "wonder theater". When Publix acquired Balaban, they embarked on a project to expand the wonder theaters, and starting building in New York City in 1927. While Balaban and Public were dominant in Chicago, Loew's was the big player in New York City, and did not want the Publix theaters to overshadow theirs. The two companies brokered a non-competition deal for New York City and Chicago, and Loew's took over the New York City area projects, developing five wonder theaters. Publix continued Balaban's wonder theater development in its home area.^[21]

On April 24, 1930, Paramount-Famous Lasky Corporation became the Paramount Publix Corporation.^[22][23]

1920s and 1931–40: Receivership and reorganization

Paramount Showman's Pictures advertisement, 1925

Eventually, Zukor shed most of his early partners; the Frohman brothers, Hodkinson and Goldwyn were out by 1917 while Lasky hung on until 1932, when, blamed for the near-collapse of Paramount in the Great Depression years, he too was tossed out. In 1931, to solve the financial problems of the company Zukor hired taxi/rental car magnate John D. Hertz as chairman of the finance committee in order to assist vice-president and treasurer Ralph A. Kohn.^[24] However, on January 6, 1933, Hertz resigned from his position when it become evident that his measures to lift the company had failed.^[25] The over-expansion and use of overvalued Paramount stock for purchases created a $21 million debt which led the company into receivership on January 26, 1933^[26] and later filing bankruptcy on March 14, 1933.^[27] On April 17, 1933, bankruptcy trustees were appointed and Zukor lost control of the company.^[28][29] The company remained under the control of trustees for more than a year in order to restructure the debt and pursue a reorganization plan.^[30] On December 3, 1934, the reorganization plan was formally proposed.^[31] After prolonged hearings in court, final confirmation was obtained on April 25, 1935, when Federal Judge Alfred C. Coxe Jr. approved the reorganization of the Paramount-Publix Corporation under Section 77-B of the Bankruptcy Act.^[32][33]

On June 4, 1935 John E. Otterson^[34] became president of the re-emerged and newly renamed Paramount Pictures Inc.^[35] Zukor returned to the company and was named production chief but after Barney Balaban was appointed president on July 2, 1936, he was soon replaced by Y. Frank Freeman and symbolically named chairman of the board.^[36][37] On August 28, 1935, Paramount Pictures was re-listed on the New York Stock Exchange and after the company was under Balaban's leadership, the studio was successfully relauched.^[38]

Paramount Pictures ad in The Film Daily, 1932

As always, Paramount films continued to emphasize stars; in the 1920s there were Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Rudolph Valentino, Florence Vidor, Thomas Meighan, Pola Negri, Bebe Daniels, Antonio Moreno, Richard Dix, Esther Ralston, Emil Jannings, George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Clara Bow, Adolphe Menjou, and Charles Buddy Rogers. By the late 1920s and the early 1930s, talkies brought in a range of powerful draws: Richard Arlen, Nancy Carroll, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Ruggles, Ruth Chatterton, William Powell, Mae West, Sylvia Sidney, Bing Crosby, Claudette Colbert, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Fredric March, Jack Oakie, Jeanette MacDonald (whose first two films were shot at Paramount's Astoria, New York, studio), Carole Lombard, George Raft, Miriam Hopkins, Cary Grant and Stuart Erwin, among them.^[39] In this period Paramount can truly be described as a movie factory, turning out sixty to seventy pictures a year. Such were the benefits of having a huge theater chain to fill, and of block booking to persuade other chains to go along. In 1933, Mae West would also add greatly to Paramount's success with her suggestive movies She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel.^[40][41] However, the sex appeal West gave in these movies would also lead to the enforcement of the Production Code, as the newly formed organization the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened a boycott if it was not enforced.^[42] Paramount cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios continued to be successful, with characters such as Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor becoming widely successful. One Fleischer series, Screen Songs, featured live-action music stars under contract to Paramount hosting sing-alongs of popular songs. The animation studio would rebound with Popeye, and in 1935, polls showed that Popeye was even more popular than Mickey Mouse.^[43] After an unsuccessful expansion into feature films, as well as the fact that Max and Dave Fleischer were no longer speaking to one another, Fleischer Studios was acquired by Paramount, which renamed the operation Famous Studios. That incarnation of the animation studio continued cartoon production until 1967, but has been historically dismissed as having largely failed to maintain the artistic acclaim the Fleischer brothers achieved under their management.^[44]

1941–50: United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.

In 1940, Paramount agreed to a government-instituted consent decree: block booking and "pre-selling" (the practice of collecting up-front money for films not yet in production) would end. Immediately, Paramount cut back on production, from 71 films to a more modest 19 annually in the war years.^[45] Still, with more new stars like Bob Hope, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard, and Betty Hutton, and with war-time attendance at astronomical numbers, Paramount and the other integrated studio-theatre combines made more money than ever. At this, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department decided to reopen their case against the five integrated studios. Paramount also had a monopoly over Detroit movie theaters through subsidiary company United Detroit Theaters.^[46] This led to the Supreme Court decision United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948) holding that movie studios could not also own movie theater chains. This decision broke up Adolph Zukor's creation, with the theater chain being split into a new company, United Paramount Theaters, and effectively brought an end to the classic Hollywood studio system.

1951–66: Split and after

With the separation of production and exhibition forced by the U.S. Supreme Court, Paramount Pictures Inc. was split in two.^[47] Paramount Pictures Corporation was formed to be the production distribution company, with the 1,500-screen theater chain handed to the new United Paramount Theaters on December 31, 1949. Leonard Goldenson, who had headed the chain since 1938, remained as the new company's president. The Balaban and Katz theatre division was spun off with UPT; its trademark eventually became the property of the Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation. The Foundation has recently acquired ownership of the Famous Players Trademark. Cash-rich and controlling prime downtown real estate, Goldenson began looking for investments. Barred from film-making by prior antitrust rulings, he acquired the struggling ABC television network in February 1953, leading it first to financial health, and eventually, in the mid-1970s, to first place in the national Nielsen ratings, before selling out to Capital Cities in 1985 (Capital Cities would eventually sell out, in turn, to The Walt Disney Company in 1996). United Paramount Theaters was renamed ABC Theaters in 1965 and was sold to businessman Henry Plitt in 1977. The movie theater chain was renamed Plitt Theaters. In 1985, Cineplex Odeon Corporation merged with Plitt. In later years, Paramount's TV division would develop a strong relationship with ABC, providing many hit series to the network.

Paramount Pictures had been an early backer of television, launching experimental stations in 1939 in Los Angeles and Chicago. The Los Angeles station eventually became KTLA, the first commercial station on the West Coast. The Chicago station got a commercial license as WBKB in 1943, but was sold to UPT along with Balaban & Katz in 1948 and was eventually resold to CBS as WBBM-TV.

In 1938, Paramount bought a stake in television manufacturer DuMont Laboratories. Through this stake, it became a minority owner of the DuMont Television Network.^[48] Also Paramount launched its own network, Paramount Television Network, in 1948 through its television unit, Television Productions, Inc.^[49]

Paramount management planned to acquire additional owned-and-operated stations ("O&Os"); the company applied to the FCC for additional stations in San Francisco, Detroit, and Boston.^[50] The FCC, however, denied Paramount's applications. A few years earlier, the federal regulator had placed a five-station cap on all television networks: no network was allowed to own more than five VHF television stations. Paramount was hampered by its minority stake in the DuMont Television Network. Although both DuMont and Paramount executives stated that the companies were separate, the FCC ruled that Paramount's partial ownership of DuMont meant that DuMont and Paramount were in theory branches of the same company. Since DuMont owned three television stations and Paramount owned two, the federal agency ruled neither network could acquire additional television stations. The FCC requested that Paramount relinquish its stake in DuMont, but Paramount refused.^[50] According to television historian William Boddy, "Paramount's checkered antitrust history" helped convince the FCC that Paramount controlled DuMont.^[51] Both DuMont and Paramount Television Network suffered as a result, with neither company able to acquire five O&Os. Meanwhile, CBS, ABC, and NBC had each acquired the maximum of five stations by the mid-1950s.^[52]

When ABC accepted a merger offer from UPT in 1953, DuMont quickly realized that ABC now had more resources than it could possibly hope to match. It quickly reached an agreement in principle to merge with ABC.^[53] However, Paramount vetoed the offer due to antitrust concerns.^[54] For all intents and purposes, this was the end of DuMont, though it lingered on until 1956.

In 1951, Paramount bought a stake in International Telemeter, an experimental pay TV service which operated with a coin inserted into a box. The service began operating in Palm Springs, California on November 27, 1953, but due to pressure from the FCC, the service ended on May 15, 1954.^[55]

With the loss of the theater chain, Paramount Pictures went into a decline, cutting studio-backed production, releasing its contract players, and making production deals with independents. By the mid-1950s, all the great names were gone; only Cecil B. DeMille, associated with Paramount since 1913, kept making pictures in the grand old style. Despite Paramount's losses, DeMille would, however, give the studio some relief and create his most successful film at Paramount, a 1956 remake of his 1923 film The Ten Commandments.^[56] DeMille died in 1959. Like some other studios, Paramount saw little value in its film library, and sold 764 of its pre-1950 films to MCA Inc./EMKA, Ltd. (known today as Universal Television) in February 1958.^[57]

1966–70: Early Gulf+Western era

By the early 1960s, Paramount's future was doubtful. The high-risk movie business was wobbly; the theater chain was long gone; investments in DuMont and in early pay-television came to nothing; and the Golden Age of Hollywood had just ended, even the flagship Paramount Building in Times Square was sold to raise cash, as was KTLA (sold to Gene Autry in 1964 for a then-phenomenal $12.5 million). Their only remaining successful property at that point was Dot Records, which Paramount had acquired in 1957, and even its profits started declining by the middle of the 1960s.^[58] Founding father Adolph Zukor (born in 1873) was still chairman emeritus; he referred to chairman Barney Balaban (born 1888) as "the boy". Such aged leadership was incapable of keeping up with the changing times, and in 1966, a sinking Paramount was sold to Charles Bluhdorn's industrial conglomerate, Gulf + Western Industries Corporation. Bluhdorn immediately put his stamp on the studio, installing a virtually unknown producer named Robert Evans as head of production. Despite some rough times, Evans held the job for eight years, restoring Paramount's reputation for commercial success with The Odd Couple, Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, and 3 Days of the Condor.^[59]

Gulf + Western Industries also bought the neighboring Desilu television studio (once the lot of RKO Pictures) from Lucille Ball in 1967. Using some of Desilu's established shows such as Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and Mannix as a foot in the door at the networks, the newly reincorporated Paramount Television eventually became known as a specialist in half-hour situation comedies.^[60]

In 1968, Paramount formed Films Distributing Corp to distribute sensitive film product, including Sin With a Stranger, which was one of the first films to receive an X rating in the United States when the MPAA introduced their new rating system.^[61]

1971–80: CIC formation and high-concept era

In 1970, Paramount teamed with Universal Studios to form Cinema International Corporation, a new company that would distribute films by the two studios outside the United States. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would become a partner in the mid-1970s. Both Paramount and CIC entered the video market with Paramount Home Video (now Paramount Home Entertainment) and CIC Video, respectively.

Robert Evans abandoned his position as head of production in 1974; his successor, Richard Sylbert, proved to be too literary and too tasteful for Gulf + Western's Bluhdorn. By 1976, a new, television-trained team was in place headed by Barry Diller and his "Killer-Dillers", as they were called by admirers or "Dillettes" as they were called by detractors. These associates, made up of Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dawn Steel and Don Simpson would each go on and head up major movie studios of their own later in their careers.

The Paramount specialty was now simpler. "high concept" pictures such as Saturday Night Fever and Grease hit big, hit hard and hit fast all over the world,^[62] while its fortuitous earlier acquisition of the Star Trek property, which had grown into a cult favorite, enabled Paramount to have a long running science fiction film and television franchise to compete with the outstanding popular success of Star Wars. Diller's television background led him to propose one of his longest-standing ideas to the board: Paramount Television Service, a fourth commercial network. Paramount Pictures purchased the Hughes Television Network (HTN) including its satellite time in planning for PTVS in 1976. Paramount sold HTN to Madison Square Garden in 1979.^[63] But Diller believed strongly in the concept, and so took his fourth-network idea with him when he moved to 20th Century Fox in 1984, where Fox's then freshly installed proprietor, Rupert Murdoch was a more interested listener.

However, the television division would be playing catch-up for over a decade after Diller's departure in 1984 before launching its own television network – UPN – in 1995. Lasting eleven years before being merged with The WB network to become The CW in 2006, UPN would feature many of the shows it originally produced for other networks, and would take numerous gambles on series such as Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise that would have otherwise either gone direct-to-cable or become first-run syndication to independent stations across the country (as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation were).

Paramount Pictures was not connected to either Paramount Records (1910s–1935) or ABC-Paramount Records (1955–66) until it purchased the rights to use the name (but not the latter's catalog) in the late 1960s. The Paramount name was used for soundtrack albums and some pop re-issues from the Dot Records catalog which Paramount had acquired in 1957. By 1970, Dot had become an all-country label^[64] and in 1974, Paramount sold all of its record holdings to ABC Records, which in turn was sold to MCA (now Universal Music Group) in 1979.^[65][66]

1980–94: Continual success

Paramount's successful run of pictures extended into the 1980s and 1990s, generating hits like Airplane!, American Gigolo, Ordinary People, An Officer and a Gentleman, Flashdance, Terms of Endearment, Footloose, Pretty in Pink, Top Gun, Crocodile Dundee, Fatal Attraction, Ghost, the Friday the 13th slasher series, as well as teaming up with Lucasfilm to create the Indiana Jones franchise. Other examples are the Star Trek film series and a string of films starring comedian Eddie Murphy like Trading Places, Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop and its sequels. While the emphasis was decidedly on the commercial, there were occasional less commercial but more artistic and intellectual efforts like I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, Atlantic City, Reds, Witness, Children of a Lesser God and The Accused. During this period, responsibility for running the studio passed from Eisner and Katzenberg to Frank Mancuso, Sr. (1984) and Ned Tanen (1984) to Stanley R. Jaffe (1991) and Sherry Lansing (1992). More so than most, Paramount's slate of films included many remakes and television spin-offs; while sometimes commercially successful, there have been few compelling films of the kind that once made Paramount the industry leader.

On August 25, 1983, Paramount Studios caught fire. Two or three sound stages and four outdoor sets were destroyed.^[67][68]

When Charles Bluhdorn died unexpectedly, his successor Martin Davis dumped all of G+W's industrial, mining, and sugar-growing subsidiaries and refocused the company, renaming it Paramount Communications in 1989. With the influx of cash from the sale of G+W's industrial properties in the mid-1980s, Paramount bought a string of television stations and KECO Entertainment's theme park operations, renaming them Paramount Parks. These parks included Paramount's Great America, Paramount Canada's Wonderland, Paramount's Carowinds, Paramount's Kings Dominion, and Paramount's Kings Island.^[69]

In May 1985, Paramount decided to start its own talent department, establishing which its feature directors could draw, which the studio decided to shut down on July 30, 1986, by then-studio president Dawn Steel.^[70] In 1987, Paramount Pictures, along with MGM/UA Communications Co. and Universal Pictures teamed up in order to market feature film and television product to China, and the consumer reach is measured in terms of the 25-billion admission tickets that were clocked in China in 1986, and Worldwide Media Sales, a division of the New York-based Worldwide Media Group had been placed in charge of the undertaking.^[71] That year, Paramount Pictures decided to consolidate its distribution operations, that closing a number of branch offices that was designed for the studio and relocating staff and major activities in an effort to cut costs and provide for a more efficient centralization, which was a response in a change to the distribution practices by working out cities where exhibitors also had offices.^[72] In August 1987, Paramount Overseas Productions decided that they would declare that the subsidiary was not just for the upcoming film Experts, which was shot $12 million in Canada, but other films filmed there worldwide, including the United Kingdom and Canada, and the company was set up it was one of the several subsidiaries through it was filmed outside of the United States.^[73]

In 1993, Sumner Redstone's entertainment conglomerate Viacom made a bid for a merger with Paramount Communications; this quickly escalated into a bidding war with Barry Diller's QVC. But Viacom prevailed, ultimately paying $10 billion for the Paramount holdings. Viacom and Paramount had planned to merge as early as 1989.^[74]

Paramount is the last major film studio located in Hollywood proper. When Paramount moved to its present home in 1927, it was in the heart of the film community. Since then, former next-door neighbor RKO closed up shop in 1957 (Paramount ultimately absorbed their former lot); Warner Bros. (whose old Sunset Boulevard studio was sold to Paramount in 1949 as a home for KTLA) moved to Burbank in 1930; Columbia joined Warners in Burbank in 1973 then moved again to Culver City in 1989; and the Pickford-Fairbanks-Goldwyn-United Artists lot, after a lively history, has been turned into a post-production and music-scoring facility for Warners, known simply as "The Lot". For a time the semi-industrial neighborhood around Paramount was in decline, but has now come back. The recently refurbished studio has come to symbolize Hollywood for many visitors, and its studio tour is a popular attraction.

1989–94: Paramount Communications

In 1983, Gulf and Western began a restructuring process that would transform the corporation from a bloated conglomerate consisting of subsidiaries from unrelated industries to a more focused entertainment and publishing company. The idea was to aid financial markets in measuring the company's success, which, in turn, would help place better value on its shares. Though its Paramount division did very well in recent years, Gulf and Western's success as a whole was translating poorly with investors. This process eventually led Davis to divest many of the company's subsidiaries. Its sugar plantations in Florida and the Dominican Republic were sold in 1985; the consumer and industrial products branch was sold off that same year.^[75] In 1989, Davis renamed the company Paramount Communications Incorporated after its primary asset, Paramount Pictures.^[76] In addition to the Paramount film, television, home video, and music publishing divisions, the company continued to own the Madison Square Garden properties (which also included MSG Network), a 50% stake in USA Networks (the other 50% was owned by MCA/Universal Studios) and Simon & Schuster, Prentice Hall, Pocket Books, Allyn & Bacon, Cineamerica (a joint venture with Warner Communications), and Canadian cinema chain Famous Players Theatres.^[75]

That same year, the company launched a $12.2 billion hostile bid to acquire Time Inc. in an attempt to end a stock-swap merger deal between Time and Warner Communications. This caused Time to raise its bid for Warner to $14.9 billion in cash and stock. Gulf and Western responded by filing a lawsuit in a Delaware court to block the Time-Warner merger. The court ruled twice in favor of Time, forcing Gulf and Western to drop both the Time acquisition and the lawsuit, and allowing the formation of Time Warner.

Paramount used cash acquired from the sale of Gulf and Western's non-entertainment properties to take over the TVX Broadcast Group chain of television stations (which at that point consisted mainly of large-market stations which TVX had bought from Taft Broadcasting, plus two mid-market stations which TVX owned prior to the Taft purchase), and the KECO Entertainment chain of theme parks from Taft successor Great American Broadcasting. Both of these companies had their names changed to reflect new ownership: TVX became known as the Paramount Stations Group, while KECO was renamed to Paramount Parks.

Paramount Television launched Wilshire Court Productions in conjunction with USA Networks, before the latter was renamed NBCUniversal Cable, in 1989. Wilshire Court Productions (named for a side street in Los Angeles) produced television films that aired on the USA Networks, and later for other networks. USA Networks launched a second channel, the Sci-Fi Channel (now known as Syfy), in 1992. As its name implied, it focused on films and television series within the science fiction genre. Much of the initial programming was owned either by Paramount or Universal. Paramount bought one more television station in 1993: Cox Enterprises' WKBD-TV in Detroit, Michigan, at the time an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company.

1994–2005: Dolgen/Lansing and "old" Viacom era

In February 1994, Viacom acquired 50.1% of Paramount Communications Inc. shares for $9.75 billion, following a five-month battle with QVC, and completed the merger in July.^[77][78][79] At the time, Paramount's holdings included Paramount Pictures, Madison Square Garden, the New York Rangers, the New York Knicks, and the Simon & Schuster publishing house.^[80] The deal had been planned as early as 1989, when the company was still known as Gulf and Western.^[74] Though Davis was named a member of the board of National Amusements, which controlled Viacom, he ceased to manage the company.

During this time period, Paramount Pictures went under the guidance of Jonathan Dolgen, chairman and Sherry Lansing, president.^[81][82] During their administration over Paramount, the studio had an extremely successful period of films with two of Paramount's ten highest-grossing films being produced during this period.^[83] The most successful of these films, Titanic, a joint partnership with 20th Century Fox, and Lightstorm Entertainment became the highest-grossing film up to that time, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide.^[84] Also during this time, three Paramount Pictures films won the Academy Award for Best Picture; Titanic, Braveheart, and Forrest Gump.

Paramount's most important property, however, was Star Trek. Studio executives had begun to call it "the franchise" in the 1980s due to its reliable revenue, and other studios envied its "untouchable and unduplicatable" success. By 1998 Star Trek television shows, movies, books, videotapes, and licensing provided so much of the studio's profit that "it is not possible to spend any reasonable amount of time at Paramount and not be aware of [its] presence"; filming for Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine required up to nine of the largest of the studio's 36 sound stages.^{[85][86]: 49–50, 54}

In 1995, Viacom and Chris-Craft Industries' United Television launched United Paramount Network (UPN) with Star Trek: Voyager as its flagship series, fulfilling Barry Diller's plan for a Paramount network from 25 years earlier. In 1999, Viacom bought out United Television's interests, and handed responsibility for the start-up network to the newly acquired CBS unit, which Viacom bought in 2000 – an ironic confluence of events as Paramount had once invested in CBS, and Viacom had once been the syndication arm of CBS, as well.^[87] During this period the studio acquired some 30 TV stations to support the UPN network, also acquiring and merging in the assets of Republic Pictures, Spelling Television and Viacom Television, almost doubling the size of the studio's television library. The television division produced the dominant prime time show for the decade in Frasier, as well as such long running hits as NCIS and Becker and the dominant prime time magazine show Entertainment Tonight. Paramount also gained the ownership rights to the Rysher library, after Viacom acquired the rights from Cox Enterprises.

During this period, Paramount and its related subsidiaries and affiliates, operating under the name "Viacom Entertainment Group" also included the fourth largest group of theme parks in the United States and Canada which in addition to traditional rides and attractions launched numerous successful location-based entertainment units including a long running "Star Trek" attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton. Famous Music – the company's celebrated music publishing arm almost doubled in size and developed artists including Pink, Bush, and Green Day, as well as catalog favorites including Duke Ellington and Henry Mancini. The Paramount/Viacom licensing group under the leadership of Tom McGrath created the "Cheers" franchise bars and restaurants and a chain of restaurants borrowing from the studio's Academy Award-winning film Forrest Gump – The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Through the combined efforts of Famous Music and the studio over ten "Broadway" musicals were created including Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Footloose, Saturday Night Fever, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard among others. The company's international arm, United International Pictures (UIP), was the dominant distributor internationally for ten straight years representing Paramount, Universal and MGM. Simon and Schuster became part of the Viacom Entertainment Group emerging as the US' dominant trade book publisher.

In 2002, Paramount; along with Buena Vista Distribution, 20th Century Fox, Columbia TriStar Pictures Entertainment, MGM/UA Entertainment, Universal Studios, DreamWorks Pictures, Artisan Entertainment, Lions Gate Entertainment, and Warner Bros. formed the Digital Cinema Initiatives. Operating under a waiver from the antitrust law, the studios combined under the leadership of Paramount Chief Operating Officer Tom McGrath to develop technical standards for the eventual introduction of digital film projection – replacing the now 100-year-old film technology.^[88] DCI was created "to establish and document voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control."^[88] McGrath also headed up Paramount's initiative for the creation and launch of the Blu-ray Disc.

2005–present: Paramount today

Paramount Pictures' studio lot in Hollywood (Melrose Gate entrance)

On December 11, 2005, the Paramount Motion Pictures Group announced that it had purchased DreamWorks SKG (which was co-founded by former Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg) in a deal worth $1.6 billion. The announcement was made by Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures who noted that enhancing Paramount's pipeline of pictures is a "key strategic objective in restoring Paramount's stature as a leader in filmed entertainment."^[89] The agreement did not include DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., the most profitable part of the company that went public the previous year.^[90]

Reflecting in part the troubles of the broadcasting business, in 2005 Viacom wrote off over $18 billion from its radio acquisitions and, early that year, announced that it would split itself in two.^[91] With that announcement, Dolgen and Lansing were replaced by former television executives Brad Grey and Gail Berman.^[92][93] The Viacom board split the company into CBS Corporation and a separate company under the Viacom name. The board scheduled the division for the first quarter of 2006. Under the plan, CBS Corporation would comprise the CBS and UPN networks, Viacom Television Stations, Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, Viacom Outdoor, Paramount Television, King World Productions, Showtime Networks, Simon & Schuster, Paramount Parks, and CBS News. The revamped Viacom would include "MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, BET and several other cable networks, as well as the Paramount movie studio".^[94] The split was completed on December 31, 2005.^[95] Paramount's home entertainment unit continued to distribute the Paramount Television library through CBS DVD, as both Viacom and CBS Corporation were controlled by Sumner Redstone's National Amusements.^[96]

Grey also broke up the famous United International Pictures (UIP) international distribution company with 15 countries being taken over by Paramount or Universal by December 31, 2006, with the joint venture continuing in 20 markets. In Australia, Brazil, France, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and the U.K., Paramount took over UIP. While in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and Switzerland, Universal took over and Paramount would build its own distribution operations there. In 2007 and 2008, Paramount may sub-distribute films via Universal's countries and vice versa. Paramount's international distribution unit would be headquartered in Los Angeles and have a European hub.^[97] In Italy, Paramount distributed through Universal.^[98] With Universal indicated that it was pulling out of the UIP Korea and started its own operation there in November 2016, Paramount agreed to have CJ Entertainment distribute there.^[99] UIP president and chief operating officer Andrew Cripps^[97] was hired as Paramount Pictures International head. Paramount Pictures International distributed films that made the 1 billion mark in July 2007; the fifth studio that year to do so and it its first year.^[100]

On October 6, 2008, DreamWorks executives announced that they were leaving Paramount and relaunching an independent DreamWorks. The DreamWorks trademarks remained with DreamWorks Animation when that company was spun off before the Paramount purchase, and DreamWorks Animation transferred the license to the name to the new company.^[101]

DreamWorks films, acquired by Paramount but still distributed internationally by Universal, are included in Paramount's market share. Grey also launched a Digital Entertainment division to take advantage of emerging digital distribution technologies. This led to Paramount becoming the second movie studio to sign a deal with Apple Inc. to sell its films through the iTunes Store.^[102]

Also, in 2007, Paramount sold another one of its "heritage" units, Famous Music, to Sony/ATV Music Publishing (best known for publishing many songs by The Beatles, and for being co-owned by Michael Jackson), ending a nearly-eight-decade run as a division of Paramount, being the studio's music publishing arm since the period when the entire company went by the name "Famous Players".^[103]

In early 2008, Paramount partnered with Los Angeles-based developer FanRocket to make short scenes taken from its film library available to users on Facebook. The application, called VooZoo, allows users to send movie clips to other Facebook users and to post clips on their profile pages.^[104] Paramount engineered a similar deal with Makena Technologies to allow users of vMTV and There.com to view and send movie clips.^[105]

In 2009, CBS Corporation stopped using the Paramount name in its series and changed the name of the production arm to CBS Television Studios, eliminating the Paramount name from television, to distance itself from the latter.

In March 2010, Paramount founded Insurge Pictures, an independent distributor of "micro budget" films. The distributor planned ten movies with budgets of $100,000 each.^[106] The first release was The Devil Inside, a movie with a budget of about US$1 million.^[107] In March 2015, following waning box office returns, Paramount shuttered Insurge Pictures and moved its operations to the main studio.^[108]

In July 2011, in the wake of critical and box office success of the animated feature, Rango, and the departure of DreamWorks Animation upon completion of their distribution contract in 2012, Paramount announced the formation of a new division, devoted to the creation of animated productions.^[109] It marks Paramount's return to having its own animated division for the first time since 1967, when Paramount Cartoon Studios shut down (it was formerly Famous Studios until 1956).^[110]

In December 2013, Walt Disney Studios (via its parent company's purchase of Lucasfilm a year earlier)^[111] gained Paramount's remaining distribution and marketing rights to future Indiana Jones films. Paramount will permanently retain the distribution rights to the first four films and will receive "financial participation" from any additional films.^[112]

In February 2016, Viacom CEO and newly appointed chairman Philippe Dauman announced that the conglomerate is in talks to find an investor to purchase a minority stake in Paramount.^[113] Sumner Redstone and his daughter Shari are reportedly opposed with the deal.^[114] On July 13, 2016, Wanda Group was in talks to acquire a 49% stake of Paramount.^[115] The talks with Wanda were dropped. On January 19, 2017, Shanghai Film Group Corp. and Huahua Media said they would finance at least 25% of all Paramount Pictures movies over a three-year period. Shanghai Film Group and Huahua Media, in the deal, would help distribute and market Paramount's features in China. At the time, the Wall Street Journal wrote that "nearly every major Hollywood studio has a co-financing deal with a Chinese company."^[116]

On March 27, 2017, Jim Gianopulos was named as a chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, replacing Brad Grey.^[117] In June 2017, Paramount Players was formed by the studio with the hiring of Brian Robbins, founder of AwesomenessTV, Tollin/Robbins Productions and Varsity Pictures, as the division's president. The division was expected to produce films based on the Viacom Media Networks properties including MTV, Nickelodeon, BET and Comedy Central.^[118] In June 2017, Paramount Pictures signed a deal with 20th Century Fox for distribution of its films in Italy, which took effect on September. Prior to the deal, Paramount's films in Italy were distributed by Universal Pictures.^[98]

On December 7, 2017, it was reported that Paramount sold the international distribution rights of Annihilation to Netflix.^[119] Netflix subsequently bought the worldwide rights to The Cloverfield Paradox for $50 million.^[120] On November 16, 2018, Paramount signed a multi-picture film deal with Netflix as part of Viacom's growth strategy, making Paramount the first major film studio to do so.^[121] A sequel to Awesomeness Films' To All the Boys I've Loved Before is currently in development at the studio for Netflix.^[122]

In April 2018, Paramount posted its first quarterly profit since 2015.^[123] Bob Bakish, CEO of parent Viacom, said in a statement that turnaround efforts "have firmly taken hold as the studio improved margins and returned to profitability. This month's outstanding box-office performance of A Quiet Place, the first film produced and released under the new team at Paramount, is a clear sign of our progress."

On September 29, 2016, National Amusements sent a letter to both CBS Corporation and Viacom, encouraging the two companies to merge back into one company.^[124] On December 12, the deal was called off.^[125] On May 30, 2019, CNBC reported that CBS and Viacom would explore merger discussions in mid-June 2019.^[126] Reports say that CBS and Viacom reportedly set August 8 as an informal deadline for reaching an agreement to recombine the two media companies.^[127][128] CBS announced to acquire Viacom as part of the re-merger for up to $15.4 billion.^[129] On August 2, 2019, the two companies agreed to remerge back into one entity,^[130] which was named ViacomCBS; the deal was closed on December 4, 2019.^[131]

In December 2019, ViacomCBS agreed to purchase a 49% stake in Miramax that was owned by beIN Media Group, with Paramount gaining the distribution of the studio's 700-film library, as well as its future releases. Also, Paramount will produce television series based on Miramax's IPs.^[132] The deal officially closed on April 3, 2020.^[133] ViacomCBS later announced that it would rebrand the CBS All Access streaming service as Paramount+ to allow for international expansion using the widely recognized Paramount name and drawing from the studio's library, as well as that of CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, and more.^[134]

Gianopulos was fired in September 2021 and replaced by Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins.^[135]

In January 2022, Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to Tomi Adeyemi's young adult fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone from Lucasfilm. As part of the acquisition, the film will have a guaranteed exclusive theatrical release while Adeyemi will write the screenplay and serve as executive producer. The film adaptation will also be produced by Temple Hill Entertainment and Sunswept Entertainment.^[136][137]

On February 16, 2022, ViacomCBS changed its name to Paramount Global, after the studio.^[138]

On March 8, 2022, Paramount Players' operations were folded into Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group.^[139] However, it will continue to operate as a label as it has several upcoming films on its slate.

On November 15, 2022, Paramount entered a multi-year exclusive deal with former president of DC Films Walter Hamada. Hamada will oversee the development of horror films beginning in 2023.^[140]

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Famous Players Film Company

Famous Players Film Company

The Famous Players Film Company was a film company founded in 1912 by Adolph Zukor in partnership with the Frohman brothers, powerful New York City theatre owners and producers.

France

France

France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. It also includes overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Its eighteen integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and had a total population of over 68 million as of January 2023. France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, and Nice.

Gaumont Film Company

Gaumont Film Company

The Gaumont Film Company, often shortened to Gaumont, is a French film studio headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont (1864–1946) in 1895, it is the oldest extant film company in the world, established before other studios such as Pathé, Titanus (1904), Nordisk Film (1906), Universal, Paramount, and Nikkatsu.

Pathé

Pathé

Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in cinemas before a feature film.

Nordisk Film

Nordisk Film

Nordisk Film A/S is a Danish entertainment company established in 1906 in Copenhagen by filmmaker Ole Olsen. It is the fourth-oldest film studio in the world behind the Gaumont Film Company, Pathé, and Titanus, and the oldest studio to be continuously active.

Hollywood, Los Angeles

Hollywood, Los Angeles

Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures, are located near or in Hollywood.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.

Adolph Zukor

Adolph Zukor

Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures. He produced one of America's first feature-length films, The Prisoner of Zenda, in 1913.

Daniel Frohman

Daniel Frohman

Daniel Frohman was an American theatrical producer and manager, and an early film producer.

Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman was an American theater manager and producer, who discovered and promoted many stars of the American stage. Frohman produced over 700 shows, and among his biggest hit was Peter Pan, both in London and the US.

Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth

Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth

Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, Les Amours d'Élisabeth, Reine d'Angleterre or La reine Élisabeth is a 1912 feature 4-reel French silent film based on the love affair between Elizabeth I of England and the Earl of Essex. It was condensed from a play of the same name and directed by Louis Mercanton and Henri Desfontaines. It was shot in Paris and starred Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth and Lou Tellegen as Essex. Bernhardt by then was 68 and said of the film "This is my last chance at immortality". She and Tellegen were already romantically involved, and this was their second film together.

Jesse L. Lasky

Jesse L. Lasky

Jesse Louis Lasky was an American pioneer motion picture producer who was a key founder of what was to become Paramount Pictures, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr.

DreamWorks Pictures

In 2006, Paramount became the parent of DreamWorks Pictures. Soros Strategic Partners and Dune Entertainment II soon afterwards acquired controlling interest in live-action films released through DreamWorks, with the release of Just Like Heaven on September 16, 2005. The remaining live-action films released until March 2006 remained under direct Paramount control. However, Paramount still owns distribution and other ancillary rights to Soros and Dune films.

On February 8, 2010, Viacom repurchased Soros' controlling stake in DreamWorks' library of films released before 2005 for around $400 million.^[141] Even as DreamWorks switched distribution of live-action films not part of existing franchises to Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and later Universal Pictures, Paramount continues to own the films released before the merger, and the films that Paramount themselves distributed, including sequel rights such as that of Little Fockers (2010), distributed by Paramount and DreamWorks. It was a sequel to two existing DreamWorks films, Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004). (Paramount only owned the international distribution rights to Little Fockers, whereas Universal Pictures handled domestic distribution^[142]).

Paramount also owned distribution rights to the DreamWorks Animation library of films made before 2013, and their previous distribution deal with future DWA titles expired at the end of 2012, with Rise of the Guardians. 20th Century Fox took over distribution for post-2012 titles beginning with The Croods (2013)^[143] and ending with Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017). Universal Pictures subsequently took over distribution for DreamWorks Animation's films beginning with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) due to NBCUniversal's acquisition of the company in 2016. Paramount's rights to the 1998–2012 DWA library would have expired 16 years after each film's initial theatrical release date,^[144] but in July 2014, DreamWorks Animation purchased Paramount's distribution rights to the pre-2013 library, with 20th Century Fox distributing the library until January 2018, which Universal then assumed ownership of distribution rights.^[145]

Another asset of the former DreamWorks owned by Paramount is the pre-2008 DreamWorks Television library, which is currently distributed by Paramount's sister company CBS Media Ventures; it includes Spin City, High Incident, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and On the Lot.

CBS library

Independent company Hollywood Classics represents Paramount with the theatrical distribution of all the films produced by the various motion picture divisions of CBS over the years, as a result of the 2000 Viacom/CBS merger.

Paramount has outright video distribution to the aforementioned CBS library with some exceptions; less-demanded content is usually released manufactured-on-demand by CBS themselves or licensed to Visual Entertainment Inc. As of the 2019 Viacom/CBS merger, this library now includes the theatrical distribution of Terrytoons short films on behalf of Paramount Animation, while CBS Media Ventures owns the television distribution. Until 2009, the video rights to My Fair Lady were with original theatrical distributor Warner Bros., under license from CBS (the video license to that film has now reverted to Paramount).

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DreamWorks Pictures

DreamWorks Pictures

DreamWorks Pictures is an American film company and distribution label of Amblin Partners. It was originally founded on October 12, 1994 as a live-action film studio by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, of which they owned 72%. The studio formerly distributed its own and third-party films. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses of more than $100 million each.

Soros Fund Management

Soros Fund Management

Soros Fund Management, LLC is a private American investment management firm. It is currently structured as a family office, but formerly as a hedge fund. The firm was founded in 1970 by George Soros and, in 2010, was reported to be one of the most profitable firms in the hedge fund industry, averaging a 20% annual rate of return over four decades. It is headquartered at 250 West 55th Street in New York.

Sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same fictional universe as an earlier work, usually chronologically following the events of that work.

Little Fockers

Little Fockers

Little Fockers is a 2010 American comedy film and the third and final film in the Meet the Parents film series, serving as a sequel to Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004). The film stars Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Jessica Alba, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand.

Meet the Parents

Meet the Parents

Meet the Parents is a 2000 American comedy film written by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg and directed by Jay Roach. It chronicles a series of unfortunate events that befall a good-hearted but hapless nurse while visiting his girlfriend's parents. Teri Polo as Pam Byrnes and Owen Wilson as Kevin Rawley also star.

Meet the Fockers

Meet the Fockers

Meet the Fockers is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Jay Roach and the sequel to the 2000 film Meet the Parents. The film stars Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner and Teri Polo. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a box office hit, grossing $522 million worldwide. It was followed by a sequel, Little Fockers, in 2010.

DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation LLC is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a division of Comcast. The studio has released 44 feature films as of December 2022, including several of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Shrek 2 (2004) having been the highest at the time of its release. The studio's first film, Antz, was released on October 2, 1998, and its latest film was Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which was released on December 21, 2022; their upcoming slate of films includes Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken on June 30, 2023, Trolls Band Together on November 17, 2023, and Kung Fu Panda 4 on March 8, 2024. Additionally, two untitled films are scheduled to be released on February 9, 2024, and September 27, 2024.

Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated fantasy action-adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by Peter Ramsey from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire, based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood and the short film The Man in the Moon by William Joyce. It stars the voices of Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Isla Fisher, and Hugh Jackman. The film tells a story about Guardians Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman, who enlist Jack Frost to stop the evil Pitch Black from engulfing the world in darkness in a fight of dreams.

The Croods

The Croods

The Croods is a 2013 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was written and directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, and stars the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, and Cloris Leachman. The film is set in a fictional prehistoric Pliocene era known as "The Croodaceous" when Grug, patriarch of the Croods, is threatened by the arrival of a genius named Guy, who comes up with revolutionary new inventions as they trek through a dangerous but exotic land in search of a new home.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is a 2017 American computer-animated superhero comedy film based on Dav Pilkey's children's novel series of the same name, produced by DreamWorks Animation and the last DreamWorks movie to be distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by David Soren from a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller, and stars the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Thomas Middleditch and Nick Kroll. The film marked the 20th anniversary of the Captain Underpants series. In the film, two fourth graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins accidentally hypnotize their mean principal, Mr. Krupp, into thinking he is the titular "Captain Underpants", a superhero who fights crime while wearing only underwear and a cape, thinking he has superpowers. The movie loosely adapts the first, second, and fourth Captain Underpants books.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a 2019 American computer-animated action fantasy film loosely based on the book series by Cressida Cowell. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures, it is the sequel to How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) and the third and final installment in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois and produced by Bonnie Arnold and Brad Lewis, the film stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, and F. Murray Abraham. The film follows Hiccup as he seeks a dragon utopia known as the "Hidden World" while coming to terms with Toothless' new bond with a female Fury, as they deal with the threat of a ruthless dragon hunter named Grimmel the Grisly.

NBCUniversal

NBCUniversal

NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States.

Divisions

• Paramount Pictures
  • Paramount Home Entertainment
  • Paramount Licensing, Inc.
  • Paramount Pictures International
  • Paramount Players
    • Nickelodeon Movies
    • BET Films
  • Paramount Studio Group – physical studio and post production
    • The Studios at Paramount – production facilities & lot
    • Paramount on Location – production support facilities throughout North America including New York City, Vancouver, and Atlanta
    • Worldwide Technical Operations – archives, restoration and preservation programs, the mastering and distribution fulfillment services, on-lot post production facilities management
  • Paramount Parks & Resorts, licensing and design for parks and resorts^[146]
• Paramount Animation^[109]
• Paramount Music

Joint ventures

• Miramax (co-owned with beIN Media Group)
  • Miramax Television
  • Miramax Family
  • Miramax Animation
• United International Pictures (co-owned with Comcast's Universal Pictures)
• Rede Telecine

Former divisions, subsidiaries, and joint ventures

• Paramount Digital Entertainment (Dormant)
• Paramount Television (original) (now CBS Studios)
  • Big Ticket Entertainment (semi-in-name-only since 2006; currently produces Judge Judy and Hot Bench)
  • Spelling Television (in-name-only since 2006)
  • Viacom Productions (folded into PNT in 2004)
  • Wilshire Court Productions (shut down in 2003)
  • Paramount Domestic Television (now CBS Media Ventures)
    • Folded Viacom Enterprises in 1995 and Rysher Entertainment and Worldvision Enterprises in 1999
    • RTV News, Inc., producer of Real TV and Maximum Exposure
  • United Paramount Network (UPN) – formerly a joint venture with United Television, now part of the CBS/WarnerMedia joint venture The CW Television Network
  • Paramount Stations Group (now CBS Television Stations)
  • USA Networks (also including the Sci-Fi Channel) – Paramount owned a stake starting in 1982, 50% owner (with Universal Pictures) from 1987 until 1997, when Paramount/Viacom sold their stake to Universal (now part of NBCUniversal)
  • Paramount International Television (merged with CBS Broadcast International in 2004 to form CBS Studios International)
• Fleischer Studios – purchased in 1942 and organized as Famous Studios (which shut down in 1967); library folded into Paramount Animation.
• Terrytoons – purchased by CBS Films (later Viacom International) in 1956; theatrical library moved to Paramount Animation following re-merger of ViacomCBS in 2019.
• Paramount Famous Productions – direct-to-video division
• Paramount Parks (Purchased by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company in 2006)
• Paramount Classics/Paramount Vantage^[147] – Paramount Classics merged into Paramount Vantage; the latter then went dormant in December 2013
• DW Studios, LLC (also DW Pictures) – defunct, holding film library and rights, principal officers left to recreate DreamWorks as an independent company
  • DW Funding LLC – DreamWorks live-action library (pre-09/16/2005; DW Funding, LLC) sold to Soros Strategic Partners and Dune Entertainment II and purchased back in 2010^[148]
  • Go Fish Pictures – Arthouse/Independent film unit for used distributing DreamWorks Pictures foreign films; defunct in 2007 after parent company's sale
• Paramount Theatres Limited – Founded 1930 in the United Kingdom with the opening of a cinema in Manchester. Several Paramount Theatres had opened or had been acquired in the United Kingdom during the 1930s before being sold to The Rank Organisation becoming part of the Odeon Cinemas chain in 1939.
• Epix – 49.76% owner (with Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer and Lionsgate) from 2009 until 2017, when Paramount/Viacom and Lionsgate sold their stakes to MGM
• Insurge Pictures – micro-budget film division (March 2010 – 2015);^[106] absorbed into Paramount itself
• Republic Pictures
• "Continental Café" – the commissary run by Pauline Kessinger until the cafe was replaced by the Zukor Building in 1983.^[149]

Other interests

In March 2012, Paramount licensed their name and logo to a luxury hotel investment group which subsequently named the company Paramount Hotels and Resorts. The investors plan to build 50 hotels throughout the world based on the themes of Hollywood and the California lifestyle. Among the features are private screening rooms and the Paramount library available in the hotel rooms. In April 2013, Paramount Hotels and Dubai-based DAMAC Properties announced the building of the first resort: "DAMAC Towers by Paramount."^[150][151]

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Paramount Home Entertainment

Paramount Home Entertainment

Paramount Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures.

Nickelodeon Movies

Nickelodeon Movies

Nickelodeon Movies is the film production arm of American children's network Nickelodeon and the family film distribution label of Paramount Pictures, launched on February 25, 1995 and based in Los Angeles, California.

Paramount Animation

Paramount Animation

Paramount Animation is an American animation studio, serving as the animation division and label of Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Paramount Global. The division was founded on July 6, 2011, following the box office success of Paramount's own Rango and the end of their distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation in 2012.

Paramount Music

Paramount Music

Paramount Music is an American record label. It serves as the in-house label for film and television music across all divisions of Paramount Pictures.

Miramax

Miramax

Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California.

BeIN Media Group

BeIN Media Group

beIN Media Group is a Qatari state-owned global sport and entertainment network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. beIN distributes entertainment, live sports action, and major international events across 5 continents, in 43 countries, and 7 different languages spanning Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Comcast

Comcast

Comcast Corporation, headquartered in Philadelphia, is the largest American multinational telecommunications conglomerate. It is the second-largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue, the largest pay-TV company, the largest cable TV company and largest home Internet service provider in the United States, and the nation's third-largest home telephone service provider. It provides services to U.S. residential and commercial customers in 40 states and the District of Columbia. As the parent company of the international media company NBCUniversal since 2011, Comcast is a producer of feature films for theatrical exhibition, and over-the-air and cable television programming.

Paramount Digital Entertainment

Paramount Digital Entertainment

Paramount Digital Entertainment, Inc. was a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures that developed and distributed movies and video games digitally via various platforms including online, mobile, virtual reality and portable devices.

CBS Studios

CBS Studios

CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount Television, as a renaming of the original incarnation of the Paramount Television studio.

Big Ticket Entertainment

Big Ticket Entertainment

Big Ticket Television, Inc. is an American production company. Big Ticket is a subsidiary of CBS Studios, a division of Paramount Global. It is best known for producing the syndicated mainstay Judge Judy from 1996 to 2021

Judge Judy

Judge Judy

Judge Judy is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudicated real-life small-claims disputes within a simulated courtroom set. Prior to the proceedings, all involved parties signed arbitration contracts agreeing to Sheindlin's ruling. The show aired in first-run syndication. As it was during its active years in production, it continues to be distributed by CBS Media Ventures in syndication, now in reruns that still draw notably high ratings.

Hot Bench

Hot Bench

Hot Bench is a nontraditional panel-based court show that made its debut in first-run syndication on September 15, 2014. The series is produced by Judge Judy's Judge Judy Sheindlin, who also created the program and concept with executive producers Randy Douthit, Maureen FitzPatrick, and David Theodosopoulos and co-executive producer James Glover for CBS Media Ventures.

Artist Dario Campanile poses with a picture Paramount commissioned him in 1986 to paint for its 75th anniversary. The company later used the painting as a basis for its new logo. That logo was introduced as a prototype in the 1986 film The Golden Child; the 1987 film Critical Condition was the first to feature the finalized version of the logo. 1999's South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was the first to use an enhanced version of the logo, which was last used on 2002's Crossroads.

The distinctively pyramidal Paramount mountain has been the mainstay of the company's production logo since its inception and is the oldest surviving Hollywood film logo. In the sound era, the logo was accompanied by a fanfare called Paramount on Parade after the film of the same name, released in 1930. The words to the fanfare, originally sung in the 1930 film, were "Proud of the crowd that will never be loud, it's Paramount on Parade."

Legend has it that the mountain is based on a doodle made by W. W. Hodkinson during a meeting with Adolph Zukor. It is said to be based on the memories of his childhood in Utah. Some claim that Utah's Ben Lomond is the mountain Hodkinson doodled, and that Peru's Artesonraju^[152] is the mountain in the live-action logo, while others claim that the Italian side of Monviso inspired the logo. Some editions of the logo bear a striking resemblance to the Pfeifferhorn,^[153] another Wasatch Range peak, and to the Matterhorn on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Mount Huntington in Alaska also bears a striking resemblance.

The motion picture logo has gone through many changes over the years:

• The logo began as a somewhat indistinct charcoal rendering of the mountain ringed with superimposed stars. The logo originally had twenty-four stars, as a tribute to the then current system of contracts for actors, since Paramount had twenty-four stars signed at the time.
• In 1951, the logo was redesigned as a matte painting created by Jan Domela.
• A newer, more realistic-looking logo debuted in 1953 for Paramount films made in 3D. It was reworked in early-to-mid 1954 for Paramount films made in widescreen process VistaVision. The text VistaVision – Motion Picture High Fidelity was often imposed over the Paramount logo briefly before dissolving into the title sequence. In early 1968, the text "A Paramount Picture/Release" was shortened to "Paramount", the byline A Gulf+Western Company appeared on the bottom, and the number of stars being reduced to 22. In 1974, another redesign was made, with the Paramount text and Gulf+Western byline appearing in different fonts.
• In September 1975, the logo was simplified in a shade of blue, adopting the modified design of the 1968 print logo, which was in use for many decades afterward. A version of the print logo had been in use by Paramount Television since 1968.
• A Black and White Paramount Pictures logo "A Paramount Picture" appeared in the live action film, Popeye, in the international trailer of Popeye, the Paramount Pictures logo (with Gulf+Western byline) appears in still and zoom-in variation of the logo exists along with the Walt Disney Productions logo (known as Mickey Head logo).^[a]
• The studio launched an entirely new logo in December 1986 with computer-generated imagery of a lake and stars. This version of the Paramount logo was designed by Dario Campanile and animated by Flip Your Lid Animation, Omnibus/Abel for the CGI stars and Apogee, Inc for the mountain; for this logo, the stars would move across the screen into the arc shape instead of it being superimposed over the mountain as it was before. A redone version of this logo debuted with South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, released on June 30, 1999.

For its 90th anniversary, Paramount adopted the logo shown here. In 2012, it was used in tandem with the current one. This picture shows the 2010 modification of the logo, which includes Viacom's revised byline introduced in 2006. The first film to use the revised Viacom byline was Iron Man 2.

• In March 2002, an updated logo by BUF Compagnie was introduced in which shooting stars would fall from a night sky to form the arc while the Paramount logo would fly into place between them. An enhanced version of this logo debuted with Iron Man 2, released on May 7, 2010. The south col area of Mount Everest became the primary basis. The music is accompanied by Paramount on Parade, which was only used on Mean Girls. This logo continued to be featured on DVD and Blu-ray releases with the first incarnation of Viacom byline until March 5, 2019, ending with Instant Family.
• On December 16, 2011, an updated logo^{[156][157][158]} was introduced with animation done by Devastudios, using Terragen.^[159] The new logo includes a surrounding mountain range and the sun shining in the background. Michael Giacchino composed the logo's new fanfare. His work on the fanfare was carried onto the Paramount Players and Paramount Animation logos, as well as the Paramount Television Studios logo, which is also used for the Paramount Network Original Productions logo with 68 Whiskey.
• The word "Pictures" was restored to the bottom of the Paramount logo in 2022 after ViacomCBS took on the Paramount name and branding for its entire operation; this revised logo used for printed materials and merchandising, while still appeared as simply "Paramount" on-screen and no longer uses the byline.

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Critical Condition (film)

Critical Condition (film)

Critical Condition is a 1987 American comedy film starring Richard Pryor and directed by Michael Apted. The film was released in the United States on January 16, 1987.

Crossroads (2002 film)

Crossroads (2002 film)

Crossroads is a 2002 American teen drama road film directed by Tamra Davis, from a screenplay by Shonda Rhimes. It stars Britney Spears, Anson Mount, Zoe Saldana, Taryn Manning, Kim Cattrall and Dan Aykroyd. Set in Georgia, it centers on three teenage girls on a cross-country road trip, as they find themselves and their friendship in the process.

Paramount on Parade

Paramount on Parade

Paramount on Parade is a 1930 all-star American pre-Code revue released by Paramount Pictures, directed by several directors including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, A. Edward Sutherland, Lothar Mendes, Otto Brower, Edwin H. Knopf, Frank Tuttle, and Victor Schertzinger—all supervised by the production supervisor, singer, actress, and songwriter Elsie Janis.

Adolph Zukor

Adolph Zukor

Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures. He produced one of America's first feature-length films, The Prisoner of Zenda, in 1913.

Ben Lomond Mountain (Utah)

Ben Lomond Mountain (Utah)

Ben Lomond, just north of Ogden, Utah, is a peak in the northern portion of the Wasatch Mountains. A popular trail passes over its summit, accessible from four different trailheads to the north, south, and east.

Artesonraju

Artesonraju

Artesonraju is a pyramidal mountain peak located near the city of Caraz in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the Peruvian Andes. It is located at the Peruvian province of Huaylas and its slopes are within two cities: Santa Cruz and Caraz. Its summit has an elevation of 6,025 metres (19,767 ft). It is one of many prominent peaks located within the boundaries of Peru's Huascarán National Park.

Monte Viso

Monte Viso

Monte Viso or Monviso is the highest mountain of the Cottian Alps. It is located in Italy close to the French border. Monte Viso is well known for its pyramid-like shape and, because it is higher than all its neighbouring peaks by about 500 m, it can be seen from a great distance, including from the Piedmontese plateau, the Langhe, the Theodulpass in the Zermatt ski area, the col du Galibier and the summits of the Mont Blanc massif. On a very clear day it can be seen from the spires of Milan Cathedral.

Pfeifferhorn

Pfeifferhorn

The Pfeifferhorn is the 11,331 feet (3,454 m) triangularly-shaped peak located in the most isolated part of the Lone Peak Wilderness Area of the Wasatch Mountains in northern Utah, United States. This rugged Utah mountain, commonly referred to as the Little Matterhorn, is the fifth-highest peak in the Wasatch Range. The summit can be reached by hiking, though some scrambling is required. There are several technical rock climbing routes with the north ridge being the most popular. This summit also makes an excellent winter mountaineering adventure.

Matterhorn

Matterhorn

The Matterhorn is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a large, near-symmetric pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, whose summit is 4,478 metres (14,692 ft) high, making it one of the highest summits in the Alps and Europe. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points and are split by the Hörnli, Furggen, Leone/Lion, and Zmutt ridges. The mountain overlooks the Swiss town of Zermatt, in the canton of Valais, to the northeast; and the Italian town of Breuil-Cervinia in the Aosta Valley to the south. Just east of the Matterhorn is Theodul Pass, the main passage between the two valleys on its north and south sides, which has been a trade route since the Roman Era.

Italy

Italy

Italy, officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands; its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione, and some islands in the African Plate. Italy covers an area of 301,230 km2 (116,310 sq mi), with a population of about 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome.

Mount Huntington (Alaska)

Mount Huntington (Alaska)

Mount Huntington is a striking rock and ice pyramid in the central Alaska Range, about 8 miles (13 km) south-southeast of Denali. It is also about 6 miles (10 km) east of Mount Hunter, and two miles west of The Rooster Comb. While overshadowed in absolute elevation by Denali, Huntington is a steeper peak: in almost every direction, faces drop over 5,000 feet (1,520 m) in about a mile (1.6 km). Even its easiest route presents significantly more technical challenge than the standard route on Denali, and it is a favorite peak for high-standard technical climbers.

Matte painting

Matte painting

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage (compositing). At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible or expensive to film. In the scenes, the painting part is static while movements are integrated on it.

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Paramount Pictures" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Paramount Studios offers tours of their studios.^[160] The 2-hour Studio Tour offers, as the name implies, a regular tour of the studio.^[160] The stages where Samson and Delilah, Sunset Blvd., White Christmas, Rear Window, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and many other classic films were shot are still in use today. The studio's backlot features numerous blocks of façades that depict a number of New York City locales, such as "Washington Square", "Brooklyn", and "Financial District". The After Dark Tour involves a tour of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.^[160]

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Samson and Delilah (1949 film)

Samson and Delilah (1949 film)

Samson and Delilah is a 1949 American romantic biblical drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and released by Paramount Pictures. It depicts the biblical story of Samson, a strongman whose secret lies in his uncut hair, and his love for Delilah, the woman who seduces him, discovers his secret, and then betrays him to the Philistines. It stars Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in the title roles, George Sanders as the Saran, Angela Lansbury as Semadar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Prince Ahtur.

Sunset Boulevard (film)

Sunset Boulevard (film)

Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. It was named after a major street that runs through Hollywood, the center of the American film industry.

White Christmas (film)

White Christmas (film)

White Christmas is a 1954 American musical dance film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen. Filmed in Technicolor, it features the songs of Irving Berlin, including a new version of the title song, "White Christmas", introduced by Crosby in the 1942 film Holiday Inn.

Rear Window

Rear Window

Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder." Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.

Sabrina (1954 film)

Sabrina (1954 film)

Sabrina is a 1954 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman, based on Taylor's 1953 play Sabrina Fair. The picture stars Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden. This was Wilder's last film released by Paramount Pictures, ending a 12-year business relationship between him and the company.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (film)

Breakfast at Tiffany's (film)

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, written by George Axelrod, adapted from Truman Capote's 1958 novella of the same name, and starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a naïve, eccentric café society girl who falls in love with a struggling writer. It was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures on October 5, 1961, to critical and commercial success.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a full-service cemetery, funeral home, crematory, and cultural events center which regularly hosts community events such as live music and summer movie screenings. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California and is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. It was founded in 1899 as Hollywood Cemetery, and, from 1939, was known as Hollywood Memorial Park until 1998 when it was given its current name. The studios of Paramount Pictures are located at the south end of the same block, on 40 acres (16 ha) that were once part of the cemetery which held no interments.

A few years after the ruling of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. case in 1948, Music Corporation of America (MCA) approached Paramount offering $50 million for 750 sound feature films released prior to December 1, 1949, with payment to be spread over a period of several years. Paramount saw this as a bargain since the fleeting movie studio saw very little value in its library of old films at the time. To address any antitrust concerns, MCA set up EMKA, Ltd. as a dummy corporation to sell these films to television. EMKA's/Universal Television's library includes the five Paramount Marx Brothers films, most of the Bob Hope–Bing Crosby Road to... pictures, and other classics such as Trouble in Paradise, Shanghai Express, She Done Him Wrong, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, and The Heiress.

The studio has produced many critically acclaimed films such as Titanic, Footloose, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Braveheart, Ghost, The Truman Show, Mean Girls, Psycho, Rocketman, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Days of Thunder, Rosemary's Baby, Sunset Boulevard, Forrest Gump, Coming to America, World War Z, Babel, The Conversation, The Fighter, Interstellar, Terms of Endearment, The Wolf of Wall Street and A Quiet Place; as well as the Godfather, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible film series.

Film series

Highest-grossing films

^‡—Includes theatrical reissue(s).

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Lists of Paramount Pictures films

Lists of Paramount Pictures films

The following are lists of Paramount Pictures films by decade:

MCA Inc.

MCA Inc.

MCA Inc. (originally an initialism for Music Corporation of America) was an American media conglomerate founded in 1924. Originally a talent agency with artists in the music business as clients, the company became a major force in the film industry, and later expanded into television production. MCA published music, booked acts, ran a record company, represented film, television, and radio stars, and eventually produced and sold television programs to the three major television networks, especially NBC.

EMKA, Ltd.

EMKA, Ltd.

EMKA Limited is a division of Universal Television with the sole function of overseeing the 1929–1949 Paramount Pictures sound feature film library.

Marx Brothers

Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them, Duck Soup (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935), in the top fifteen. They are widely considered by critics, scholars and fans to be among the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century. The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema, the only performers to be included collectively.

Shanghai Express (film)

Shanghai Express (film)

Shanghai Express is a 1932 American pre-Code film about a group of train passengers held hostage by a warlord during the Chinese Civil War. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong and Warner Oland. The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman based on a 1931 short story by Harry Hervey. Shanghai Express was the fourth of seven films that Sternberg and Dietrich created together.

She Done Him Wrong

She Done Him Wrong

She Done Him Wrong is a 1933 pre-Code American crime/comedy film starring Mae West and Cary Grant, directed by Lowell Sherman. The plot includes melodramatic and musical elements, with a supporting cast featuring Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery Sr., Rochelle Hudson, and Louise Beavers. The film was adapted from the successful 1928 Broadway play Diamond Lil by Mae West. The film is famous for West's many double entendres and quips, including her best-known, "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?". She Done Him Wrong was a box-office success and the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (film)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (film)

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 American epic war film produced and directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou and Joseph Calleia. The screenwriter Dudley Nichols based his script on the 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by American novelist Ernest Hemingway. The film is about an American International Brigades volunteer, Robert Jordan (Cooper), who is fighting in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists. During his desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge to protect Republican forces, Jordan falls in love with a young woman guerrilla fighter (Bergman).

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity is a 1944 American crime film noir directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The screenplay was based on James M. Cain's 1943 novel of the same title, which appeared as an eight-part serial for Liberty magazine in February 1936.

Footloose (1984 film)

Footloose (1984 film)

Footloose is a 1984 American musical drama film directed by Herbert Ross. It tells the story of Ren McCormack, a teenager from Chicago who moves to a small town, where he attempts to overturn the ban on dancing instituted by the efforts of a local minister.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (film)

Breakfast at Tiffany's (film)

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, written by George Axelrod, adapted from Truman Capote's 1958 novella of the same name, and starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a naïve, eccentric café society girl who falls in love with a struggling writer. It was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures on October 5, 1961, to critical and commercial success.

Braveheart

Braveheart

Braveheart is a 1995 American epic historical drama film directed by, produced by, and starring Mel Gibson. Gibson portrays Sir William Wallace, a late-13th century Scottish warrior who led the Scots in the First War of Scottish Independence against King Edward I of England. The film also stars Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan and Catherine McCormack. The story is inspired by Blind Harry's 15th century epic poem The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace and was adapted for the screen by Randall Wallace.

Ghost (1990 film)

Ghost (1990 film)

Ghost is a 1990 American romantic fantasy film directed by Jerry Zucker from a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin, and starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn, Vincent Schiavelli, and Rick Aviles. The plot centers on Sam Wheat (Swayze), a murdered banker, whose ghost sets out to save his girlfriend, Molly Jensen (Moore), from the person who killed him – through the help of the psychic Oda Mae Brown (Goldberg).

On July 31, 2018, Paramount was targeted by the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the National Latino Media Council, which have both claimed that the studio has the worst track record of hiring Latino and Hispanic talent both in front of and behind the camera (the last Paramount film directed by a Spanish director was Rings in 2017). In response, Paramount released the statement: "We recently met with NHMC in a good faith effort to see how we could partner as we further drive Paramount's culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Under our new leadership team, we continue to make progress — including ensuring representation in front of and behind the camera in upcoming films such as Dora the Explorer, Instant Family, Bumblebee, and Limited Partners – and welcome the opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with the Latino creative community further."^{[163][164][165]}

The NHMC protested at the Paramount Pictures lot on August 25. More than 60 protesters attended, while chanting "Latinos excluded, time to be included!". NHMC president and CEO Alex Nogales vowed to continue the boycott until the studio signed a memorandum of understanding.^[166]

On October 17, the NHMC protested at the Paramount film lot for the second time in two months, with 75 protesters attending. The leaders delivered a petition signed by 12,307 people and addressed it to Jim Gianopulos.^[167]

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National Hispanic Media Coalition

National Hispanic Media Coalition

The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) civil rights organization that was founded to eliminate hate, discrimination, and racism towards the Latino community.

Rings (2017 film)

Rings (2017 film)

Rings is a 2017 American supernatural horror film directed by F. Javier Gutiérrez, written by David Loucka, Jacob Aaron Estes and Akiva Goldsman and starring Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki, Aimee Teegarden, Bonnie Morgan and Vincent D'Onofrio. It is the third and final installment in The Ring series, following The Ring (2002) and The Ring Two (2005); it is based on elements of Spiral by Kōji Suzuki.

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a 2019 American adventure comedy film directed by James Bobin. It is a live-action adaptation of the Nick Jr. animated television series Dora the Explorer as well as the Nickelodeon animated series Dora and Friends. The film stars Isabela Moner, Eugenio Derbez, Michael Peña, Eva Longoria, with Danny Trejo as the voice of Boots. The titular Lost City of Gold is based on the legendary Inca city, Paititi. Dora and the Lost City of Gold was produced by Paramount Players and Nickelodeon Movies in association with Walden Media, MRC and Burr! Productions, and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Instant Family

Instant Family

Instant Family is a 2018 American family comedy-drama film starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne as parents who adopt three siblings, played by Isabela Moner, Gustavo Quiroz, and Julianna Gamiz. Also starring Margo Martindale, Julie Hagerty, Tig Notaro, and Octavia Spencer, the film is directed by Sean Anders, who wrote the screenplay with John Morris, based in part on Anders' own experiences.

Bumblebee (film)

Bumblebee (film)

Bumblebee is a 2018 science fiction action film based on the Transformers toy line character of the same name. The film is the sixth installment in the Transformers film series while serving as both a spin-off and prequel to the 2007 film. The film is directed by Travis Knight and written by Christina Hodson. It stars Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Jason Drucker, and Pamela Adlon, and features Dylan O'Brien, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, and Peter Cullen in voice roles. It was Knight's first live-action film, as well as the first film in the Transformers series not to be directed by Michael Bay, who instead acted as a producer. Principal photography on the film began on July 31, 2017, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.

Like a Boss (film)

Like a Boss (film)

Like a Boss is a 2020 American comedy film directed by Miguel Arteta, written by Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly, and starring Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, and Salma Hayek. The plot follows two friends who attempt to take back control of their cosmetics company from an industry titan.