Paramount Pictures
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Type: | Subsidiary of Viacom |
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Founded: | Los Angeles, California, USA (1914) |
Headquarters: | Los Angeles, California |
Key people: | Brad Grey, Chairman and CEO Gail Berman, President |
Industry: | Motion pictures |
Revenue: | $3.0 billion USD (2005) |
Operating income: | $62.1 million USD (2005) |
Website: | http://www.paramount.com |
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company. It is the oldest American movie studio ever. It has been in existence for 94 years. Paramount is owned by media conglomerate Viacom. Paramount is one of the Big Ten movie studios
[edit] History
Paramount Pictures Inc. can trace its beginnings to the creation in May, 1912 of the Famous Players Film Company. Organized in 1914 by a Utah theater owner, W. W. Hodkinson, Paramount Pictures was the first successful nation-wide distributor. Until this time, films were sold on a state-wide or regional basis. This was inefficient and costly to film producers.
In 1916, Adolph Zukor created a three-way merger of his Famous Players Film Company, Jesse L. Lasky's Lasky Feature Play Company, and Paramount. The new company was called Famous Players-Lasky and grew quickly. Lasky ran the production side. Hiram Abrams was in charge of distribution and Zukor handled the business side of the company.
In 1927, Famous Players-Lasky took on the name Paramount-Famous Lasky Corportation. Three years later, because of the importance of the Publix theater chain, it was later known as Paramount-Publix Corporation. The company went into bankruptcy in 1933. When the company emerged from bankruptcy, it was known as Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Paramount Pictures had been an early supporter of television. It created stations in 1939 in Los Angeles (later to become KTLA) and Chicago's WBKB.
[edit] From the 1980s to the present day
Paramount's successful run of lightweight pictures in the 1980s and 1990s created hits like Flashdance, the Friday the 13th series; Raiders of the Lost Ark, Beverly Hills Cop and the Star Trek features.
In 1993, entertainment conglomerate Viacom made a bought Paramount.
Paramount is the last major film studio located in Hollywood. Other studios such as Warner Brothers and Columbia moved to Burbank, California.
On December 11, 2005, Paramount said it had purchased DreamWorks SKG in a deal worth $1.6 billion. On February 1, 2006, the studio announced that the DreamWorks acquisition was completed.