The document provides an overview of the history and development of major Hollywood studios, focusing on the 'big six' including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Bros. It highlights significant milestones in the film industry from the late 1800s to the present, noting the impact of technological advancements, iconic films, and influential filmmakers. The narrative emphasizes Hollywood's cultural significance and its evolution as a global entertainment hub.

2.  History
 The Big Three
 The Top Six
› 20th Century Fox
› Paramount Pictures
› Columbia
› Warner Bros

3.  Although Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, for some
it's more a state-of-mind. "I'm going to Hollywood," say young
hopefuls who dream of acting in movies or on television.
 Indeed, they're going to Los Angeles but probably not to
Hollywood itself.
 Though Hollywood has long represented the glitz and glamour
of the film, television, and music industries, being home to many
of the largest studios to date, this all did not just develop in a
blink of a few years.
 Nevertheless, Hollywood still attracts millions of visitors each year
who travel there to pay homage to their favorite stars and
perhaps even catch a glimpse of a few famous personalities.
Sometimes they're lucky!

4.  The origin of movies and motion pictures began in the
late 1800’s, with the invention of “motion toys” designed
to trick the eye into seeing an illusion of motion from a
display of still frames in quick succession.
 In 1872, Edward Muybridge created the first true
“motion picture” by placing twelve cameras on a
racetrack and rigging the cameras to capture shots in
quick sequence as a horse crossed in front of their
lenses.

5.  The 1900’s were a time of great advancement for film and
motion picture technology. Exploration into editing, backdrops,
and visual flow motivated aspiring filmmakers to push into new
creative territory. One of the earliest and most famous movies
created during this time was The Great Train Robbery, created in
1903 by Edwin S. Porter
 The 1920’s were when the movie industry began to truly flourish,
along with the birth of the “movie star”. With hundreds of movies
being made each year, Hollywood was the rise of an American
force. Hollywood alone was considered a cultural icon set apart
from the rest of Los Angeles, emphasizing leisure, luxury, and a
growing “party scene”.

6. The "Big Three" majors, whose operations are based in or around the Los
Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood, are all centered in film studios active
during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s.

8. Today, Disney is the
only member of the
Big Six whose parent
entity
(conglomerate) is still
located near Los
Angeles (actually, on
Disney's studio lot and
in the same building).

10.  20th Century Fox’s story begins in a tiny theater on New
York’s Lower East Side.
 In 1904, fresh from Hungary, 25-year-old William Fox amazed
audiences with his magical hand-cranked films.
 The beginnings were humble – folding chairs, a painted wall
for a screen -- but the desire to entertain and move people
has been at the core of what 20th Century Fox has been
doing ever since.
 By 1915, Fox’s five-cent movie shows were wildly popular
and his single screen grew first into a chain of 25 theaters
around New York City and then into a movie making
business.

11.  William Fox starts the Fox Film Foundation with
studios built in New Jersey and Hollywood.
 Further in 1915, D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation is
released.
Hailed as the most important film of all time for
American movie history for introducing story
flashbacks, dramatic close-ups, cross-cutting.
 From the first Cinemascope production The Robe
in 1953, which electrified audiences and
changed the way movies were shot and shown,
to Avatar, the highest-grossing picture of all time,
whose use of motion capture and re-imagined 3-
D are regarded as modern breakthroughs in
cinematic technology, Fox has never stopped
exploring what movies could be.

12. Avatar (2009) is the
first movie to ever
cross the US$
2,000,000,000 (2
billion) mark
worldwide (and
later the US$ 2.5
billion mark),
making it the
highest grossing film
in history.

13.  When the world wanted to bury the movie
musical, Fox gave it the Academy Award
winning Sound of Music, considered by many
to be the best musical of all time.
 Fox showed the world a new vision of Science
Fiction with Star Wars and ushered in the
modern action hero with the Die Hard series.
 Comedies like Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire
became instant classics and brought whole
families back to the theater to enjoy
watching movies together.

14.  Drawing inspiration from real life, 20th
Century Fox re-imagined the biopic
with films like Patton and Braveheart
and captured the epic romance and
tragedy of Titanic.
 From the gritty streets of 1970s New
York in The French Connection to the
candy-colored streets of Mumbai in
Slumdog Millionaire, 20th Century Fox
never shied away from exploring the
human condition -- or the mutant
condition, as the X-Men series
continues to show.
 Apart from drawing inspiration from
real life, they brought to the screen
beloved works of literature, like Life of
Pi and The Fault In Our Stars.

15.  As the digital revolution reshapes all aspects of the
entertainment industry, 20th Century Fox remains on the
forefront, embracing new technologies that take their
audience deeper into our films.
 From thrilling animated features to visual effects that
make our superheroes leap and fly of the screen, our
mission is the same as it was over a century ago, give
people the simple pleasure of being transported by a
story on a screen.

17.  Paramount Pictures is consistently ranked as one of the top six film studios of
Hollywood.
 It is a subsidiary of U.S. media conglomerate Viacom.
 Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the
Famous Players Film Company when Hungarian-born founder, Adolph Zukor,
who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed
mainly to working-class immigrants.
 The visionary Zukor laid the foundation for the company by acquiring the U.S.
distribution rights to the silent French film Queen Elizabeth, a groundbreaking
four-reel feature in a time when two reels was the norm.

18.  By the 1960s however, Paramount once again faced
difficult times. Charles Bluhdorn's Gulf + Western, which
purchased Paramount in 1966, looked to actor-turned-
studio-boss Robert Evans to pull off a turnaround.
 His biggest feature was a modestly budgeted drama
based on a bestselling book called Love Story, and its
word-of-mouth success and against-the-grain
sentimentality gave the studio the crowd-pleaser it
desperately needed
 The film, which starred Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw,
grossed more than $100 million worldwide (smashing all
previous box office records for the studio) and received
seven Oscar nominations.
 After this turning point, the studio would go on to
produce some of the most successful and iconic films in
cinematic history.
 These 'New Hollywood' classics include The Godfather,
The Godfather Part II, Harold and Maude, The
Conversation and Chinatown.

19.  Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation became the first
successful nationwide film distribution company, releasing
two to three new pictures a week from 1916 to 1921.
 It became a fully integrated company that controlled every
aspect of filmmaking - production, distribution, and
exhibition - until the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that it
constituted a monopoly for motion picture studios to also
own theatre chains.
 The obsession of making quality films (besides the hardships
they faced) was evident from the very beginning when
they won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture in
1927 - only a year after moving into their current studio lot.

20.  Since the economic
difficulties of
Paramount Pictures in
the 1960s, the film
company has
produced some of
the best films,
including Titanic
(1997) and the
Transformers series.

21.  Buttressed by these triumphs, the remainder of
the '70s and '80s was a steady ride for the
studio.
 The year 1986 was particularly notable as
Paramount captured a 22 percent share of
total domestic box office revenue, twice that
of its closest competitor, and boasted five of
the year's top 10 highest grossing films,
including Top Gun and Crocodile Dundee.
 Stars such as Rudolf Valentino, Mae West, Bing
Crosby, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Elvis
Presley and Audrey Hepburn graced a lot of
success to the studio in earlier years.
 In more recent times, the star power has only
grown brighter as they’ve worked with Steven
Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Tom
Cruise, Angelina Jolie and many more.
 Top grossing Paramount film includes Titanic,
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,
Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Forrest Gump,
Shrek the Third.

22.  As the longest operating major studio in Hollywood, The
Studios at Paramount has almost a century of
experience providing the finest production services
from development through post production.
 Today, Paramount Pictures celebrates its 100th year
making it the longest operating major studio in
Hollywood.

24.  The predecessor of Columbia Pictures, CBC Film Sales Corporation, was
founded in 1918 by Harry Cohn, his brother Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt.
 Brandt eventually tired of dealing with the Cohn brothers, and sold his
one-third stake to Harry Cohn, who took over as president. In an effort to
improve its image, the Cohn brothers renamed the company Columbia
Pictures Corporation on January 10, 1924.
 Columbia's product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted
features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various
serials, and cartoons.
 Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare,
eventually joining the second tier of Hollywood studios along with United
Artists and Universal.
 Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was a horizontally integrated
company that only controlled production and distribution.

25.  Backed by the success of their modest productions, CBC produced
their first feature-length film in 1922 on a $20,000 budget, More To Be
Pitied Than Scorned, with resounding success, taking in $130,000 in
profit.
 CBC saw that the company’s future lay in film production and, with it,
a grander vision.
 Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion
Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of
the Japanese conglomerate Sony.

26.  In 1997,
Columbia
Pictures ranked
as the highest
grossing movie
studio in the
United States
with a gross of
$1.256 billion.

27.  Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) was
established to specialize in the
acquisition, production,
marketing and distribution of
prestigious foreign and
American independent films.
 Nominated for numerous
Academy Awards®, the SPC
library includes such notable
titles as Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon, All About My Mother,
Capote, Blue Jasmine, Midnight
in Paris, Still Alice and Whiplash

28.  Today, the motion picture and television library is one of
the company’s most valuable assets with more than
3,500 film titles and more than 275 television series.
 With a rich history that dates back to the birth of the
motion picture industry, SPE is known throughout the
world not only for its leading motion picture and
television programming, but also its breakthrough digital
innovations that bridge the gap between
entertainment content and consumer delivery systems.

30.  A subsidiary of Time Warner Company
founded in 1923, owning further subsidiary
companies including Warner Bros.
Pictures, Warner Bros. Interactive
Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television etc.
 The company's name originates from the
four founding Warner brothers, namely
Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner.
 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.

31.  Their first full-scale picture, My Four Years in
Germany, based on the best-selling book by
America's ambassador to the court of Kaiser
Wilhelm, premiered in 1918 and grossed an amazing
(for that time) $1.5 million.
 Their projects included The Beautiful and Damned,
Beau Brummel, The Marriage Circle, Kiss Me Again
brought the studio much critical acclaim.

32.  At the box office in the 1990s, Warner Bros.
Pictures continued to break records and earn
critical raves around the world with movies
like Driving Miss Daisy GoodFellas (1990),
Unforgiven (1992).
 These critically acclaimed movies bagged
many Academy Awards and nominations.
 Warner Bros. Entertainment today, is a global
leader in all forms of entertainment and their
related businesses across all current and
emerging media and platforms.
 In 2009, Warner Bros. became the first studio
in history to gross more than $2 billion
domestically in a single year.
 Warner Bros top grossing films to date are The
Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Harry
Potter and The Deathly Hollows Part 2, Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone, and The
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

33.  Warner Bros. Harry Potter film
series was the worldwide
highest grossing film series of all
time without inflation
adjustment.
 Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows – Part 2 was Warner
Bros.' highest grossing movie
ever (surpassing The Dark
Knight)

34.  One of the most respected, diversified and successful
motion picture and television studios in the world,
Warner Bros.
 The fully integrated, broad-based company stands at
the forefront of every aspect of the entertainment
industry from feature film, television and home
entertainment production and worldwide distribution to
DVD and Blu-ray, digital distribution, animation, comic
books, product and brand licensing and broadcasting.