Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. and abbreviated as WB), is an American entertainment company headquartered in Burbank, California and the flagship division of AT&T's WarnerMedia. Founded in 1923 by brothers Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games, and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

The company is known for its film studio division, the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, the Warner Animation Group, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Films. Among its other assets include the television production and syndication company Warner Bros. Television; animation studios Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios; comic book publisher DC Comics; video game development and publishing arm Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment; cable television channels Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Boomerang and Turner Classic Movies; and a 50% interest in The CW television network, which is co-owned with ViacomCBS. Warner Bros. also operates various divisions specializing in publishing, merchandising, music, theater; and theme parks. Bugs Bunny, a cartoon character created as part of the Looney Tunes series, serves as the company's official mascot.

Founding
The company's name originated from the four founding Warner brothers (born Wonskolaser or Wonsal before Anglicization): Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner. They emigrated as young children with their parents to Canada from Krasnosielc, Poland.

Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the movie theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery. They opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903.

When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, and arranged to save it. The owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance.

In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, to distribute films. In 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films. In 1918 they opened the first Warner Brothers Studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, based on a popular book by former ambassador James W. Gerard, was released. On April 4, 1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. (As late as the 1960s, Warner Bros. claimed 1905 as its founding date.)



The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, from theatrical impresario David Belasco. However, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins. The movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the studio's top star. Jack nicknamed him "The Mortgage Lifter" and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanuck's career. Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jack's right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director; Harry Rapf left the studio to join Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle was the studio's most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year.

Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warner's remained a lesser studio. Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a long-term contract; like The Marriage Circle, Beau Brummell was named one of the ten best films of the year by the Times. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywood's most successful independent studio, where it competed with "The Big Three" Studios (First National, Paramount Pictures, and MGM). As a result, Harry Warner—while speaking at a convention of 1,500 independent exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—was able to convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000 in newspaper advertising, and Harry saw this as an opportunity to establish theaters in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

As the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan. With this new money, the Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a nationwide distribution system. In 1925, Warners' also experimented in radio, establishing a successful radio station, KFWB, in Los Angeles.

Units
Warner Bros. Entertainment operates the following primary business segments they call "divisions":

Motion Pictures Group
The Warner Bros. Motion Pictures Group handles the company's filmmaking operations, theatrical distribution, marketing and promotion for films produced and released by Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Pictures is the division's flagship label. Other labels include Warner Animation Group, New Line Cinema, DC Films, Telewest Pictures, Warner Max and Castle Rock Entertainment.

The division was established on January 2008, as a way to better market and distribute the films produced by various Warner Bros. divisions including New Line Cinema, and Warner Bros. Pictures. Studio veteran Jeff Robinov, who had been President of Warner Bros. Pictures since 2002, was tapped to lead the newly created division.

In 2013, after five years as President, Robinov began weighing the possibility of leaving Warner Bros. fearful he would not survive a studio shakeup. Despite the studios' monetary success attributed to Robinov, he was criticized for not creating a "clear strategy for mining the studio’s DC Comics division." On June 24, 2014, it was officially announced that Robinov would step down as President of Warner Bros. Pictures Group. Following Robinov's departure, the four executives that reported to him, began reporting to CEO Kevin Tsujihara, and the four of them began running the Warner Bros. Pictures Group together. The motion-picture group operated this way until 2016 when Toby Emmerich who had been a long-time manager of New Line Cinema, was promoted to CCO of the group.

In 2018 amongst another studio shake up, long-time Warner Bros. employee Blair Rich, who was Executive vice president of worldwide movie marketing, was promoted to President of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group. In October 2019, Emmerich extended his contract as chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, and promoted Carolyn Blackwood to the new role of COO.

Film Library

Acquired Libraries

Mergers and acquisitions have helped Warner Bros. accumulate a diverse collection of films, cartoons and television programs. As of 2019, WB owned more than 79,000 hours of programming, including 7,500 feature films and 4,500 television programs comprising tens of thousands of individual episodes.

In the aftermath of the 1948 antitrust suit, uncertain times led Warner Bros. in 1956 to sell most of its pre-1950 films and cartoons to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.). In addition, a.a.p. also obtained the Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios Popeye cartoons, originally from Paramount Pictures. Two years later, a.a.p. was sold to United Artists, which owned the company until 1981, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired United Artists.

In 1982, during their independent years, Turner Broadcasting System acquired Brut Productions, the film production arm of France-based then-struggling personal-care company Faberge Inc.

In 1986, Turner Broadcasting System acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Finding itself in debt, Turner Entertainment kept the pre-May 1986 MGM film and television libraries and a small portion of the United Artists library (including the a.a.p. library and North American rights to the RKO Radio Pictures library) while spinning off the rest of MGM.

In 1989, Warner Communications acquired Lorimar-Telepictures Corporation. Lorimar's catalogue included the post-1973 library of Rankin/Bass Productions, and the post-1947 library of Monogram Pictures/Allied Artists Pictures Corporation.

In 1991, Turner Broadcasting System acquired animation studio Hanna-Barbera and the Ruby-Spears library from Great American Broadcasting, and years later, Turner Broadcasting System acquired Castle Rock Entertainment on December 22, 1993 and New Line Cinema on January 28, 1994. On October 10, 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting System, thus bringing Warner Bros.' pre-1950 library back home. However, Warner Bros. only owns Castle Rock Entertainment's post-1994 library.

On October 4, 2007, Warner Bros. added the Peanuts library to its own under license from Peanuts Worldwide, LLC, licensor and owner of the Peanuts material; this includes all of the television library. (the theatrical library continues to be owned by ViacomCBS's Paramount Pictures.)

In 2008, Time Warner shut down New Line Cinema as an independent mini-major studio, and integrated New Line into the Warner Bros. library.

In June 2016, it created the Harry Potter Global Franchise Development Team to oversee its ownership of the Harry Potter franchise worldwide (including the Wizarding World trademark).

Television
Warner Bros. Television oversees and grows the entire portfolio of Warner Bros.' television businesses, including worldwide production, traditional and digital distribution, and broadcasting. In addition to the main WBTV label, the division's production/syndication labels in the United States include Alloy Entertainment, Telepictures and Warner Horizon Television. In October 2019, WBTV subsumed Telewest Studios, the production/distribution arm of WarnerMedia-owned UK channel Telewest, thus turning WBTV into a multinational production/distribution hub containing 87,000 hours of programming across a wide variety of genres in nearly 20 countries, with a vast variety of international labels across scripted and non-scripted TV. The division also contains the company's 50% stake in The CW television network, which it co-owns with ViacomCBS.

Home Media and Games
Warner Bros. Home Media and Games brings together all of Warner Bros.’ home entertainment, digital media and video game businesses. The division includes the home video distribution arm Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and the video game publishing company Warner Bros. Interactive.

Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics
Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics (formerly known as Warner Bros. Global Kids and Young Adults) is responsible for the company's family, kids, animation, and young adult properties, as well as the preservation of Warner Bros.'s classic film library, particularly titles administered by Turner Entertainment, and the catalog of animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The division was established on March 4, 2019, as part of a major reorganization of WarnerMedia. Its properties include former Turner Broadcasting networks Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies; It also licenses or has ownership interests in international versions of these properties. It also contains Warner Animation Group, the company's feature animation arm, and the animation studios Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Williams Street; programmes produced by these studios are distributed by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment.