Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures is an American film production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global. It is the fifth oldest film studio in the world, the second oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the "Big Five" film studios still located in the city limits of Los Angeles.

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California.

Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

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. Even as DreamWorks switched distribution of live-action films not part of existing franchises to Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and later Universal Studios, 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 (2011), 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 Studios handled domestic distribution).

Paramount 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 on post-2012 titles beginning with The Croods (2013) and ended with Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) with Universal Pictures taking over distribution for DreamWorks Animation with NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation in 2016, starting in 2019 with the release of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, though Paramount's rights to pre-2013 DreamWorks Animation films would've expired 16 years after each film's initial theatrical release date. However, 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.

Another asset of the former DreamWorks owned by Paramount, is the pre-2008 DreamWorks Television library, distributed through Paramount Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution, the library includes Spin City, High Incident, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and On the Lot, the DreamWorks Television library was distributed by the old Paramount Television years before.

CBS library
Independent company Hollywood Classics now 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 Viacom/CBS merger.

Paramount (via CBS Home Entertainment) has outright video distribution to the aforementioned CBS library with few exceptions-for example, the original Twilight Zone DVDs are handled by Image Entertainment. 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 CBS Home Entertainment under Paramount).

The CBS-produced/owned films, unlike other films in Paramount's library, are still distributed by CBS Television Distribution on TV, and not by Trifecta Entertainment & Media, because CBS (or a subdivision) is the copyright holder for these films.

Divisions

 * Paramount Pictures
 * Paramount Licensing, Inc.
 * Paramount Digital Entertainment
 * Paramount Pictures International
 * 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, 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
 * Paramount Animation (2011–present)
 * Paramount Players (June 2017–) (Viacom Media Networks branded labels):
 * MTV Films
 * Nickelodeon Movies
 * Comedy Central Films
 * BET Films
 * Paramount Music

Joint ventures

 * Miramax (co-owned with beIN Media Group)
 * Miramax Television
 * Miramax Family
 * Miramax Animation
 * Rede Telecine

Former divisions, subsidiaries, and joint ventures

 * Paramount Television (original) (now CBS Television Studios)
 * Big Ticket Television (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 Television Distribution)
 * 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/Time Warner 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 Studios) from 1987 until 1997, when Paramount/Viacom sold their stake to Universal (now part of NBCUniversal)
 * Paramount International Television (now CBS Studios International)
 * Paramount Famous Productions – direct-to-video division
 * Paramount Parks (Purchased by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company in 2006)
 * Paramount Classics/Paramount Vantage
 * 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
 * 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's, 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 stake to MGM
 * Insurge Pictures – micro-budget film division (March 2010 – 2015)
 * Republic Pictures
 * United International Pictures (co-owned with Comcast's Universal Pictures; moved to Paramount Rights)

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. On April 2013, Paramount Hotels and Dubai-based DAMAC Properties announced the building of the first resort: "DAMAC Towers by Paramount."

Film library
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 anti-trust 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 Imdemnity, 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, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Days of Thunder, Rosemary's Baby, Nebraska, Sunset Boulevard, Forrest Gump, Super 8, Coming to America, World War Z, Babel, The Conversation, The Fighter, Interstellar, Team America, Terms of Endearment, and A Quiet Place; as well as commercially successful franchises and/or properties such as: the Godfather films, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, SpongeBob SquarePants, the Grease films, the Top Gun films, The Italian Job, the Transformers films, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films, the Tomb Raider films, the Friday the 13th films, the Cloverfield films, the G.I. Joe films, the Beverly Hills Cop films, the Terminator films, the Pet Sematary films, the Without a Paddle films, Jackass, the Odd Couple films, South Park, the Crocodile Dundee films, the Charolette's Web films, the Wayne's World films, Beavis & Butthead, Jimmy Neutron, the War of the Worlds films, the Naked Gun films, the Anchorman films, Dora the Explorer, the Addams Family films, Rugrats, the Zoolander films, Æon Flux, the Ring films, the Bad News Bears films, The Wild Thornberrys, and the Paranormal Activity films; as well as the first four films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Indiana Jones films, and various DreamWorks Animation properties (such as Shrek, the Madagascar sequels, the first two Kung Fu Panda films, and the first How to Train Your Dragon) before both studios were respectively acquired by Disney (via Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm) and Universal Studios.