Big Idea Entertainment

Big Idea Entertainment, LLC (formerly known as Big Idea Productions, Inc. and Big Idea, Inc.; also simply as Big Idea) is an American Christian animation production company, best known for its computer-animated VeggieTales series of Christian-themed home videos.

Founded in February 1989 as GRAFx Studios by Phil Vischer, the company was renamed as Big Idea Productions in August 1993 and it released its first direct-to-video VeggieTales program in December. In 2002, Big Idea adapted the Biblical story of Jonah for its first theatrical feature film, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, which was co-produced with FHE Pictures. Its second theatrical film, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie, was co-produced with Starz Animation and released in 2008.

From 1989 to 2004, headquarters of Big Idea Entertainment was in Lombard, Illinois, a suburb outside of Chicago.[1] After Big Idea Entertainment declared bankruptcy in 2003 and the company was sold to Classic Media, headquarters was moved in 2004 to Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb outside of Nashville.[2] In 2012, DreamWorks Animation purchased Classic Media.[3] In 2013, DreamWorks began to oversee productions of Big Idea Entertainment and launched the Netflix series VeggieTales in the House. After production of VeggieTales in the House's sequel series entitled VeggieTales in the City wrapped in 2017, DreamWorks sold the Franklin headquarters to Kingdom Story Company.[4] Big Idea continues to operate as an in-name-only unit of 20th Century Fox owned by Paramount for future projects and social media in relation to the VeggieTales franchise.[5][non-primary source needed] Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, characters from VeggieTales, serve as the studios' mascots.

History[edit]
Big Idea was founded in February 1989 under the name GRAFx Studios by Phil Vischer to create graphics in television commercials.[6] In 1991, Vischer created a 12-second short film called Mr. Cuke's Screen Test. This short inspired him and Mike Nawrocki to create VeggieTales, with Nawrocki coming up with the name. Vischer thought the name "GRAFx" no longer suited a company about to create children's videos, so he renamed it as Big Idea Productions, Inc. on August 6, 1993.[6] The company released its first video, Where's God When I'm S-Scared? in December of the same year.

Rapidly running out of office space, Big Idea relocated to the Chicago suburbs in 1997 with the purchase of the DuPage Theater in Lombard, Illinois.[7] However, renovation delays, unforeseen building conditions, and lengthy zoning battles resulted. In the interim, the company was guided by Lombard City officials to rent space at the Yorktown Center, a local mall.

In a co-production with FHE Pictures, Big Idea released its first theatrical feature film, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie on October 4, 2002.

On September 2, 2003, Big Idea declared bankruptcy after encountering management and financial issues and a lawsuit by HIT Entertainment in 2001. By the end of the year, it was auctioned off to Classic Media for $19.3 million.[8][9][10] After its purchase, the company relocated to Nashville in 2004.

Big Idea partnered with Toronto-based Starz Animation to produce its second theatrical feature film, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie, which was released on January 11, 2008 by Universal Pictures.[11]

In April 2009, Entertainment Rights fell into voluntary administration and sold its UK- and US-based subsidiaries, including Big Idea and its parent company, Classic Media, to Boomerang Media.[12] As of 2011 Big Idea, Inc. has been repackaged officially as Big Idea Entertainment, LLC. In July 2012, Big Idea's parent company, Classic Media, was acquired by DreamWorks Animation and renamed DreamWorks Classics.

On April 28, 2016, NBCUniversal announced that it would be acquiring DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion.[13] The sale was completed on August 22, 2016.[14][15]

On July 3, 2018, Vischer confirmed that Big Idea's offices in Franklin were shut down. While marketing employees continued to work for Big Idea during this time, DreamWorks sold the Franklin, Tennessee studio in late 2017.[16]

In 2023, Paramount (20th Century Fox) licensed the properties of the studio to FX, Nat Geo and the Star streaming channel. They launched the production of a new series entitled The VeggieTales Show in 2019 through a collaboration between 20th Century Fox and Trilogy Animation Group. Vischer confirmed on Twitter that he and Nawrocki were both returning to work as head writers for the new series.[17][non-primary source needed] 20th Century Fox, formerly known as 20th Century Studios before 2025, is an American film production studio headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles[6] and is a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, division of Paramount Global. Paramount Pictures distributes and markets the films made under the 20th Century Fox brand. Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the fifth oldest film studio in the world,[1] the second oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the "Big Four" film studios still located in the city limits of Los Angeles.[2]

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 22 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo.[3] In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only.[4] The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California.[5]

Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).[6]

VeggieTales history[edit]
Main article: VeggieTales

VeggieTales is a series of children's computer animated films featuring anthropomorphic vegetables and conveying moral themes based on Christianity, spliced with joking references to pop culture and current events. VeggieTales was created by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, who also provide many of the voices. VeggieTales has also been released as books, games, and many other branded items such as toys and clothing. Additionally, the series has been adapted for television broadcast on Qubo (where it aired from September 9, 2006, to September 5, 2009)[18] and on Netflix where DreamWorks Animation Television produced two series, VeggieTales in the House[19] (which ran from November 26, 2014 to September 23, 2016) and VeggieTales in the City (which ran from February 24 to September 15, 2017).

From founding to 1956[edit]
See also: Fox Film and Twentieth Century Pictures Carmen Miranda as Dorita in The Gang's All Here. In 1946, she was the highest-paid actress in the United States.[11]

Alice Faye as Baroness Cecilia Duarte, Don Ameche as Larry Martin and Baron Manuel Duarte, and Carmen Miranda as Carmen in That Night in Rio, produced by Fox in 1941 The 20th Century-Fox logo depicted in a 1939 advertisement in Boxoffice From the 1952 film Viva Zapata! The entrance to 20th Century's studio lot Twentieth Century Pictures' Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck left United Artists over a stock dispute, and began merger talks with the management of financially struggling Fox Film, under President Sidney Kent.[12][13]

Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, helped make it happen (and later became president of the new company).[12] The company had been struggling since founder William Fox lost control of the company in 1930.[14]

Fox Film and Twentieth Century Pictures merged in 1935. Initially, it was speculated in The New York Times that the newly merged company would be named Fox-Twentieth Century Pictures.[15] However, 20th Century brought more to the bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck, as it was profitable and had more talent than Fox. The new company, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31, 1935. Kent remained at the company, joining Schenck and Zanuck. [13] Zanuck replaced Winfield Sheehan as the company's production chief.[16]

The company established a special training school. Lynn Bari, Patricia Farr and Anne Nagel were among 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" on August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with 20th Century-Fox after spending 18 months in the school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years.[17]

For many years, 20th Century Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film was founded. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding in recent years, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915.[18] The company's films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their opening credits as well as its opening fanfare, but with the name changed to 20th Century-Fox.

After the merger was completed, Zanuck signed young actors to help carry 20th Century-Fox: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Carmen Miranda, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Sonja Henie, and Betty Grable. 20th Century-Fox also hired Alice Faye and Shirley Temple, who appeared in several major films for the studio in the 1930s.[19][20]

Higher attendance during World War II helped 20th Century-Fox overtake RKO and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to become the third most profitable film studio. In 1941, Zanuck was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Signal Corps and assigned to supervise the production of U.S. Army training films. His partner, William Goetz, filled in at 20th Century-Fox.[21]

In 1942, Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio.[22] During the next few years, with pictures like Wilson (1944), The Razor's Edge (1946), Boomerang, Gentleman's Agreement (both 1947), The Snake Pit (1948), and Pinky (1949), Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. 20th Century-Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams' Leave Her to Heaven (1945), starring Gene Tierney, which was the highest-grossing 20th Century-Fox film of the 1940s. The studio also produced film versions of Broadway musicals, including the Rodgers and Hammerstein films, beginning with the musical version of State Fair (1945), the only work that the partnership written especially for films.

After the war, audiences slowly drifted away with the advent of television. 20th Century-Fox held on to its theaters until a court-mandated "divorce"; they were spun off as Fox National Theaters in 1953.[23] That year, with attendance at half the 1946 level, 20th Century-Fox gambled on an unproven process. Noting that the two film sensations of 1952 had been Cinerama, which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, and "Natural Vision" 3D, which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, 20th Century-Fox mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President Spyros Skouras struck a deal with the inventor Henri Chrétien, leaving the other film studios empty-handed, and in 1953 introduced CinemaScope in the studio's groundbreaking feature film The Robe.[24]

Zanuck announced in February 1953 that henceforth all 20th Century-Fox pictures would be made in CinemaScope.[25] To convince theater owners to install this new process, 20th Century-Fox agreed to help pay conversion costs (about $25,000 per screen); and to ensure enough product, 20th Century-Fox gave access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features, The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire (also 1953), Warner Bros., MGM, RKO, Universal-International, Columbia, UA, Allied Artists, and Disney quickly adopted the process. In 1956, 20th Century-Fox engaged Robert Lippert to establish a subsidiary company, Regal Pictures, later Associated Producers Incorporated to film B pictures in CinemaScope (but "branded" RegalScope). 20th Century-Fox produced new musicals using the CinemaScope process including Carousel and The King and I (both 1956).

CinemaScope brought a brief upturn in attendance, but by 1956 the numbers again began to slide.[26][27] That year Darryl Zanuck announced his resignation as head of production. Zanuck moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer, seldom being in the United States for many years.

Production and financial problems[edit]
Zanuck's successor, producer Buddy Adler, died a year later.[28] President Spyros Skouras brought in a series of production executives, but none had Zanuck's success. By the early 1960s, 20th Century Fox was in trouble. A new version of Cleopatra (1963) began production in 1959 with Joan Collins in the lead.[29] As a publicity gimmick, producer Walter Wanger offered $1 million to Elizabeth Taylor if she would star;[29] she accepted and costs for Cleopatra began to escalate. Richard Burton's on-set romance with Taylor was surrounding the media. However, Skouras' selfish preferences and inexperienced micromanagement on the film's production did nothing to speed up production on Cleopatra.

Meanwhile, another remake—of the Cary Grant hit My Favorite Wife (1940)—was rushed into production in an attempt to turn over a quick profit to help keep 20th Century-Fox afloat. The romantic comedy entitled Something's Got to Give paired Marilyn Monroe, 20th Century-Fox's most bankable star of the 1950s, with Dean Martin and director George Cukor. The troubled Monroe caused delays daily, and it quickly descended into a costly debacle. As Cleopatra 's budget passed $10 million, eventually costing around $40 million, 20th Century-Fox sold its back lot (now the site of Century City) to Alcoa in 1961 to raise funds. After several weeks of script rewrites on the Monroe picture and very little progress, mostly due to director George Cukor's filming methods, in addition to Monroe's chronic sinusitis, Monroe was fired from Something's Got to Give[29] and two months later she was found dead. According to 20th Century-Fox files, she was rehired within weeks for a two-picture deal totaling $1  million, $500,000 to finish Something's Got to Give (plus a bonus at completion), and another $500,000 for What a Way to Go. Elizabeth Taylor's bout with pneumonia and the media coverage of the Burton affair allowed Skouras to scapegoat the two stars for all the production setbacks, which helped earn the long-time industry professional Taylor a new disruptive reputation.[30] Challenges on the Cleopatra set continued from 1960 into 1962, though three 20th Century-Fox executives went to Rome in June 1962 to fire her. They learned that director Joseph L. Mankiewicz had filmed out of sequence and had only done interiors, so 20th Century-Fox was then forced to allow Taylor several more weeks of filming. In the meantime during that summer of 1962 Fox released nearly all of its contract stars to offset burgeoning costs, including Jayne Mansfield.[31][32]

With few pictures on the schedule, Skouras wanted to rush Zanuck's big-budget war epic The Longest Day (1962),[29] an accurate account of the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, with a huge international cast, into release as another source of quick cash. This offended Zanuck, still 20th Century-Fox's largest shareholder, for whom The Longest Day was a labor of love that he had dearly wanted to produce for many years. After it became clear that Something's Got to Give would not be able to progress without Monroe in the lead (Martin had refused to work with anyone else), Skouras finally decided that re-signing her was unavoidable. But days before filming was due to resume, she was found dead at her Los Angeles home and the picture resumed filming as Move Over, Darling, with Doris Day and James Garner in the leads. Released in 1963, the film was a hit.[33] The unfinished scenes from Something's Got to Give were shelved for nearly 40 years. Rather than being rushed into release as if it were a B-picture, The Longest Day was lovingly and carefully produced under Zanuck's supervision. It was finally released at a length of three hours and was well received.

At the next board meeting, Zanuck spoke for eight hours, convincing directors that Skouras was mismanaging the company and that he was the only possible successor. Zanuck was installed as chairman, and then named his son Richard Zanuck as president.[34] This new management group seized Cleopatra and rushed it to completion, shut down the studio, laid off the entire staff to save money, axed the long-running Movietone Newsreel (the archives of which are now owned by Fox News), and made a series of cheap, popular pictures that restored 20th Century-Fox as a major studio. The saving grace for the studio's fortunes came from the tremendous success of The Sound of Music (1965),[35] an expensive and handsomely produced film adaptation of the highly acclaimed Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, which became a significant success at the box office and won five Academy Awards, including Best Director (Robert Wise) and Best Picture of the Year.

20th Century-Fox also had two big science-fiction hits in the decade: Fantastic Voyage (1966), and the original Planet of the Apes (1968), starring Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter, and Roddy McDowall. Fantastic Voyage was the last film made in CinemaScope; the studio had held on to the format while Panavision lenses were being used elsewhere.

Zanuck stayed on as chairman until 1971, but there were several expensive flops in his last years, resulting in 20th Century-Fox posting losses from 1969 to 1971. Following his removal, and after an uncertain period, new management brought 20th Century-Fox back to health. Under president Gordon T. Stulberg and production head Alan Ladd, Jr., 20th Century-Fox films connected with modern audiences. Stulberg used the profits to acquire resort properties, soft-drink bottlers, Australian theaters and other properties in an attempt to diversify enough to offset the boom-or-bust cycle of picture-making.

Foreshadowing a pattern of film production still yet to come, in late 1973 20th Century-Fox joined forces with Warner Bros. to co-produce The Towering Inferno (1974),[36] an all-star action blockbuster from producer Irwin Allen. Both studios found themselves owning the rights to books about burning skyscrapers. Allen insisted on a meeting with the heads of both studios and announced that as 20th Century-Fox was already in the lead with their property it would be career suicide to have competing movies. Thus the first joint-venture studio deal was struck. In hindsight, while it may be commonplace now, back in the 1970s, it was a risky, but revolutionary, idea that paid off handsomely at both domestic and international box offices around the world.

20th Century-Fox's success reached new heights by backing the most profitable film made up to that time, Star Wars (1977). Substantial financial gains were realized as a result of the film's unprecedented success: from a low of $6 in June 1976, stock prices more than quadrupled to almost $27 after Star Wars release; 1976 revenues of $195  million rose to $301  million in 1977.[37]

Marvin Davis and Rupert Murdoch[edit]
Fox Plaza, Century City headquarters completed in 1987 With financial stability came new owners, when 20th Century-Fox was sold for $720 million on June 8, 1981, to investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis.[38] 20th Century-Fox's assets included Pebble Beach Golf Links, the Aspen Skiing Company and a Century City property upon which Davis built and twice sold Fox Plaza.

By 1984, Rich had become a fugitive from justice, having fled to Switzerland after being charged by U.S. federal prosecutors with tax evasion, racketeering and illegal trading with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. Rich's assets were frozen by U.S. authorities.[39] In 1984 Marvin Davis bought out Marc Rich's 50% interest in 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation for an undisclosed amount,[39] reported to be $116 million.[40] Davis sold this interest to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $250 million in March 1985. Davis later backed out of a deal with Murdoch to purchase John Kluge's Metromedia television stations.[40] Murdoch went ahead alone and bought the stations, and later bought out Davis' remaining stake in 20th Century Fox for $325 million.[40] From 1985, the hyphen was permanently deleted from the brand name, with 20th Century-Fox changing to 20th Century Fox.[41][42] In 1985, 20th Century-Fox shuttered the TLC Films division down after only three years, of which they had been started in 1982.[43]

To gain FCC approval of 20th Century-Fox's purchase of Metromedia's television holdings, once the stations of the long-dissolved DuMont network, Murdoch had to become a U.S. citizen. He did so in 1985, and in 1986 the new Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. Over the next 20-odd years the network and owned-stations group expanded to become extremely profitable for News Corp. An enhanced version of the 1994 to 2010 logo In 1994, Fox would establish four new divisions: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Family Films, Fox Animation Studios, and Fox 2000 Pictures. Fox Searchlight would specialize in the specialty and indie film market, with Thomas Rothman, then president of production at The Samuel Goldwyn Company, being brought on to head up the new studio. It was soon given its name with Rothman as its founding president.[44][45] Fox Family Films was tasked with producing films geared towards families, under John Matoian.[46] Fox Animation Studios was established on August 9, 1994,[47] designed to compete with Walt Disney Feature Animation, whom had found success in the Disney Renaissance. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman of the failing Sullivan Bluth Studios were appointed to head the new $100 million animation studio.[48] Fox 2000 Pictures was formed to specialize in mid-budget-ranging films targeted towards underserved groups of audiences,[49] with Laura Ziskin brought on as president.[50]

Music[edit]
Main articles: 20th Century Fox Records and Fox Music

Between 1933 and 1937, a custom record label called Fox Movietone was produced starting at F-100 and running through F-136. It featured songs from 20th Century movies, first using material recorded and issued on Victor's Bluebird label and halfway through switched to material recorded and issued on ARC's dime store labels (Melotone, Perfect, etc.). These scarce records were sold only at Fox Theaters.

20th Century formed its music arm, 20th Century Fox Records in 1958. It would lay dormant in 1981.

Fox Records was the 20th Century's music arm since 1992 before being renamed to Fox Music in 2000. It encompasses music publishing and licensing businesses, dealing primarily with Fox Entertainment Group's television and film soundtracks under license by Universal Music Group, EMI, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group. It would also lay dormant on January 17, 2020.

Television[edit]
Main article: 20th Television

20th Century Fox Television is the television production division of 20th Century Fox. 20th Century Fox Television was the studio's television production division, along with Fox 21 Television Studios until they were renamed 20th Century Fox Television and Fox 21 Television respectively in 2020. 20th Century Fox Television was also the studio's television syndication division until it was folded into Paramount Television in 2025.[97]

During the mid-1950s, feature films were released to television in the hope that they would broaden sponsorship and help the distribution of network programs. Blocks of one-hour programming of feature films to national sponsors on 128 stations were organized by Twentieth Century Fox and National Telefilm Associates. Twentieth Century Fox received 50% interest in the NTA Film network after it sold its library to National Telefilm Associates. This gave 90 minutes of cleared time a week and syndicated feature films to 110 non-interconnected stations for sale to national sponsors.[98]

Buyout of Four Star[edit]
Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century bought out the remaining assets of Four Star Television from Ronald Perelman's Compact Video in 1996.[99] The majority of Four Star Television's library of programs are controlled by 20th Television today.[100][101][102] After Murdoch's numerous buyouts during the buyout era of the eighties, News Corporation had built up financial debts of $7 billion (much from Sky TV in the UK), despite the many assets that were held by NewsCorp.[103] The high levels of debt caused Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s.

In August 1997, Fox's Los Angeles-based visual effects company, VIFX, acquired majority interest in Blue Sky Studios to form a new visual effects and animation company, temporarily renamed "Blue Sky/VIFX".[51] Blue Sky had previously did the character animation of MTV Films' first film Joe's Apartment. Following the studio's expansion, Blue Sky produced character animation for the films Alien Resurrection, A Simple Wish, Mouse Hunt, Star Trek: Insurrection and Fight Club.[52] VIFX was later sold to another VFX studio Rhythm and Hues Studios in March of 1999.[53] According to Blue Sky founder Chris Wedge, Fox considered selling Blue Sky as well by 2000 due to financial difficulties in the visual effects industry in general.

In February of 1998, following the success of Fox Animation Studios' first film Anastasia, Fox Family Films changed its name to Fox Animation Studios and dropped its live action production. which would be picked up by other production units.[54] The actual Fox Animation Studios would become a division of the formerly-named Fox Family Films, being referred to as the Phoenix studio. However, Fox Animation Studios in Los Angeles would be renamed to 20th Century Fox Animation between 1998 and 1999. The Phoenix studio would face financial problems, eventually with Fox laying off 300 of the nearly 380 people who worked at the Phoenix studio[55] in order to "make films more efficiently". After the box office-failure of Titan A.E., Fox Animation Studios would shut down on June 26, 2000.[56][57][58] Their last film set to be made would have been an adaptation of Wayne Barlowe's illustrated novel Barlowe's Inferno, and was set to be done entirely with computer animation.[59] Another film they would have made was The Little Beauty King, an adult animated film directed by Steve Oedekerk, which would have been a satire of the films from the Disney Renaissance. It would predate Shrek (2001).[60]

Chris Wedge, film producer Lori Forte, and Fox Animation executive Chris Meledandri presented Fox with a script for a comedy feature film titled Ice Age.[61] Studio management pressured staff to sell their remaining shares and options to Fox on the promise of continued employment on feature-length films. The studio moved to White Plains NY and started production on Ice Age. As the film wrapped, Fox, having little faith in the film, feared that it might bomb at the box office. Fox terminated half of the production staff and tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the film and the studio.[citation needed] Instead, Ice Age was released by Fox in conjunction with 20th Century Fox Animation on March 15, 2002 to critical and commercial success, receiving a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003.[62] Ice Age would spawn a franchise and bolster Blue Sky into producing feature films and becoming a household name in feature animation. The Fox Broadcasting Company's Los Angeles studios in 2005 Since January 2000, this company has been the international distributor for MGM/UA releases. In the 1980s, 20th Century Fox – through a joint venture with CBS called CBS/Fox Video – had distributed certain UA films on video; thus UA has come full circle by switching to 20th Century Fox for video distribution. 20th Century Fox also makes money distributing films for small independent film companies.

In late 2006, Fox Atomic was started up[63] under Fox Searchlight head Peter Rice and COO John Hegeman[64] as a sibling production division under Fox Filmed Entertainment.[63] In early 2008, Atomic's marketing unit was transferred to Fox Searchlight and 20th Century Fox, when Hegeman moved to New Regency Productions. Debbie Liebling became president. After two middling successes and falling short with other films, the unit was shut down in April 2009. The remaining films under Atomic in production and post-productions were transferred to 20th Century Fox and Fox Spotlight with Liebling overseeing them.[64]

In 2008, 20th Century Fox announced an Asian subsidiary, Fox STAR Studios, a joint venture with STAR TV, also owned by News Corporation. It was reported that Fox STAR would start by producing films for the Bollywood market, then expand to several Asian markets.[65] In 2008, 20th Century Fox started Fox International Productions .[66]

Chernin Entertainment was founded by Peter Chernin after he stepped down as president of 20th Century Fox's then-parent company News Corp. in 2009.[67] Chernin Entertainment's five-year first-look deal for the film and television was signed with 20th Century Fox and 20th Century Fox TV in 2009.[68]

In August 2012, 20th Century Fox signed a five-year deal with DreamWorks Animation to distribute in domestic and international markets. However, the deal did not include the distribution rights for previously released films which DreamWorks Animation acquired from Paramount Pictures later in 2014.[69] Fox's deal with DreamWorks Animation ended on June 2, 2017 with the release of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, and since the NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation on August 22, 2016, all DWA movies from How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World onwards are marketed and distributed by Universal Pictures.

21st Century Fox era[edit]
In 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corp. would be split into two publishing and media-oriented companies: a new News Corporation, and 21st Century Fox, which operated the Fox Entertainment Group assets, such as 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000 Pictures, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Blue Sky Studios and others. Murdoch considered the name of the new company a way to maintain the 20th Century Fox's heritage.[70][71]

Fox Stage Productions was formed in June 2013.[72] The creation of 21st Century Fox was completed on June 28, 2013.[73] In August 2013, 20CF started a theatrical joint venture with a trio of producers, both film and theater, Kevin McCollum, John Davis and Tom McGrath.[74]

In September 2017, Locksmith Animation formed a multi-year production deal with 20th Century Fox, who would distribute Locksmith's films under 20th Century Fox Animation, with Locksmith aiming to release a film every 12–18 months. The deal was to bolster Blue Sky's output and replace the loss of distributing DreamWorks Animation films.[75]

Technoprops, a VFX company that worked on Avatar, was purchased in April 2017 to operate as Fox VFX Lab. Technoprops' founder Glenn Derry would continue to run the company as vice president of visual effect reporting to John Kilkenny, VFX president.[76]

On October 30, 2017, Vanessa Morrison was named president of a newly created 20th Century Fox division, Fox Family, reporting to the Chairman & CEO and Vice Chairman of 20th Century Fox. The family division would develop films that appeal to younger moviegoers and their parents both animated films and films with live-action elements. Also, the division would oversee the studio's family animated television business, which produces based holiday television specials on existing film properties, and oversee feature film adaptation of its TV shows.[77] To replace Morrison at Fox Animation, Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird were named co-presidents of 20th Century Fox Animation.[78]

Radio[edit]
The Twentieth Century Fox Presents radio series[104] were broadcast between 1936 and 1942. More often than not, the shows were a radio preview featuring a medley of the songs and soundtracks from the latest movie being released into the theaters, much like the modern-day movie trailers we now see on TV, to encourage folks to head down to their nearest Picture House.

The radio shows featured the original stars, with the announcer narrating a lead-up that encapsulated the performance.

Motion picture film processing[edit]
From its earliest ventures into movie production, Fox Film Corporation operated its own processing laboratories. The original lab was located in Fort Lee, New Jersey along with the studios. A lab was included with the new studio built in Los Angeles in 1916.[105] Headed by Alan E. Freedman, the Fort Lee lab was moved into the new Fox Studios building in Manhattan in 1919.[106] In 1932, Freedman bought the labs from Fox for $2,000,000 to bolster what at that time was a failing Fox liquidity.[107][108] He renamed the operation "DeLuxe Laboratories," which much later became Deluxe Entertainment Services Group. In the 1940s Freedman sold the labs back to what was then 20th Century Fox and remained as president into the 1960s. Under Freedman's leadership, DeLuxe added two more labs in Chicago and Toronto and processed film from studios other than Fox, such as UA and Universal.

20th Century Family[edit]
Main article: 20th Century Family

20th Century Family is an American family-friendly production division of 20th Century Studios. Besides family-friendly theatrical films, the division oversees mixed media (live-action with animation), family animated holiday television specials based on film properties, and film features based on TV shows.

On October 30, 2017, Morrison was transferred from her post as president of 20th Century Animation, the prior Fox Family Films, to be president of a newly created 20th Century Fox division, Fox Family, which as a mandate similar to Fox Family Films. The division pick up supervision of a Bob's Burgers film[77] and some existing deals with animation producers, including Tonko House.[109] With the August 2019 20th Century Fox slate overhaul announcement, 20th Century Fox properties such as Home Alone, Night at the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Cheaper by the Dozen, and the Ice Age spin-off have been assigned for Paramount's release


 * Upcoming productions


 * The Bob's Burgers Movie, produced with Bento Box Entertainment (May 27, 2022)[77][111]
 * The Prom Goer's Interstellar Excursion based film, produced with Chernin Entertainment[112]
 * Paper Lanterns live-action/animated family film written by Jonny Sun and produced with Chernin Entertainment[113]
 * The Garden live-action/CGI musical film based on book of Genesis's the Garden of Eden with Franklin Entertainment[114]

Searchlight Pictures[edit]
Main article: Searchlight Pictures

Searchlight Pictures is a division of 20th Century Studios that specializes in arthouse and independent films. Successful releases include Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave, Isle of Dogs, Nomadland, and The Shape of Water.

20th Century Animation[edit]
Main article: 20th Century Animation

20th Century Animation is an animation studio organized as a division of 20th Century Fox, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Originally formed in 1994 as its subsidiary, it's tasked with producing feature-length films. At one point divisions were Fox Animation Studios until 2000 and Blue Sky Studios until 2021. Its successful films and franchises include Anastasia, The Simpsons Movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox and both the Ice Age and Rio film series.

20th Digital Studio[edit]
Main article: 20th Digital Studio

20th Digital Studio (formerly Zero Day Fox) is an American web series and web films production and distribution company founded in 2008 as a digital media, and is a subsidiary of 20th Century Studios.

Fox Studios Australia[edit]
Main article: Fox Studios Australia

Fox Studios Australia is a film and television studio in Sydney currently part of Paramount Global since 2025 occupying the site of the former Sydney Showground at Moore Park. The studio opened in May 1998 by 20th Century Fox, and is now owned by The Walt Disney Studios.

Regency Enterprises (20%)[edit]
Main article: Regency Enterprises

Regency Enterprises is an American entertainment company formed by Arnon Milchan. It was founded in 1982 as the successor to Regency International Pictures.

Logo and fanfare[edit]
The 20th Century-Fox production logo and fanfare (as seen in 1947) 20th Century Studios is perhaps best known for its production logo. The familiar 20th Century logo originated as the logo of Twentieth Century Pictures and was adopted by 20th Century-Fox after the merger in 1935. It consists of a stacked block-letter three-dimensional, monolithic logotype (nicknamed "the Monument") surrounded by Art deco buildings and illuminated by searchlights.[130] In the production logo that appears at the start of films, the searchlights are animated and the sequence is accompanied by a distinctive fanfare that was originally composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman.[131] The original layout of the logo was designed by special effects animator and matte painting artist Emil Kosa Jr..[132][133]

The 20th Century logo and fanfare have been recognized as an iconic symbol of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

In 1953, Rocky Longo, an artist at Pacific Title, was hired to recreate the original logo design for the new CinemaScope picture process. Longo tilted the "0" in "20th" to have the logo maintain proportions in the wider CinemaScope format.[134] Alfred Newman also re-composed the logo's fanfare with an extension to be heard during the CinemaScope logo that would follow after the Fox logo. Although the format had since declined, director George Lucas specifically requested that the CinemaScope version of the fanfare be used for the opening titles of Star Wars (1977). Additionally, the film's main theme was composed by John Williams in the same key as the fanfare (B♭ major), serving as an extension to it of sorts.[135][136] In 1981, the logo was slightly altered with the re-straightening of the "0" in "20th".[134]

In 1994, after a few failed attempts, Fox in-house television producer Kevin Burns was hired to produce a new logo for the company, this time using the then-new process of computer-generated imagery (CGI) adding more detail and animation, with the longer 21-second Fox fanfare arranged by Bruce Broughton used as the underscore. It would later be re-recorded by David Newman in 1997 and again in 1998.[134][136] The logo was animated by Burns alongside Flip Your Lid Animation.

In 2009, an updated logo created by Blue Sky Studios debuted with the release of Avatar.[134]

On September 16, 2014, 20th Century Fox posted a video showcasing all of the various versions of the logo, plus the "William Fox Presents" version of the Fox Film logo and the 20th Century Pictures logo, including some variations, up until the 2009 version of the logo, with the 1998 version of the fanfare composed by David Newman, to promote the new Fox Movies website.

On January 17, 2020, it was reported that Paramount had not begun to phase out the "Fox" name from the studio's branding as it is no longer tied to the current Fox Corporation, with 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures respectively renamed to 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures. Branding elements associated with the studio, including the searchlights, monolith, and fanfare, will remain in use. The first film that carries the new 20th Century Studios name is The Call of the Wild (coincidentally the original film adaptation was the original Twentieth Century Pictures' final movie before its merger with Fox Film).[137][10][138]

For the 20th Century Studios logo, its print logo debuted on a movie poster of The New Mutants[139][140] while the on-screen logo debuted in a television advertisement for and the full version debuted on February 21, 2020, with the film The Call of the Wild.[141] The 20th Century Studios logo was animated by Picturemill, based on Blue Sky Studios' animation.[142]

In the television series Futurama, a "30th Century Fox" logo appears after some episodes about its setting; in particular, the company is credited as "30th Century Fox Television" after every episode, and even on the side of the show's DVDs. A fictional "30th" statue was also seen in the episode "That's Lobstertainment!" as a literal statue and searchlights in Hollywood in the 31st century; a joke is also made that several movies were made each year of the pilots who were blinded by said searchlights and ended up crashing after flying by the statue, one example of which was seen while the characters were touring.

Film library[edit]
Main article: Lists of 20th Century Studios films

Highest-grossing films[edit]
I ‡—Includes theatrical reissue(s).

See also[edit]

 * Searchlight Pictures
 * 20th Television
 * 20th Television Animation

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the fifth oldest film studio in the world,[1] the second oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the "Big Four" film studios still located in the city limits of Los Angeles.[2]

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 22 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo.[3] In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only.[4] The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California.[5]

Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).[6]

Famous Players Film Company
Main article: 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), 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 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. Paramount Pictures' first logo, based on a design by its co-founder William Wadsworth Hodkinson, used from 1914 to 1967. 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
Main article: Famous Players-Lasky The logo, with Portuguese captions: Distribuida Pela Paramount.

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 he 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] In 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 sung the most famous song from the film, "Louise".

Publix, Balaban and Katz, Loew's competition and wonder theaters
Detail of Publix Theatre logo on what is now Indiana Repertory Theatre. 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).

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
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 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 was 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 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 when Balaban leaded the company, he was able to successfully relaunch the studio.[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.

The DuMont 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] and 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 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.[71]

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.[72] In 1989, Davis renamed the company Paramount Communications Incorporated after its primary asset, Paramount Pictures.[73] 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.[72]

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.

On July 7, 1994, Paramount Communications was absorbed into its own company, Viacom.

2005–present: Paramount today
Paramount Pictures' studio lot in Hollywood (Melrose Gate entrance)

Viacom split
Reflecting in part the troubles of the broadcasting business, in 2006 Viacom wrote off over $18 billion from its radio acquisitions and, early that year, announced that it would split itself in two. The split was completed in January 2006.[87][88]

History since 2006
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.[95] In Italy, Paramount distributed through Universal.[96] 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.[97] UIP president and chief operating officer Andrew Cripps[95] 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.[98]

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.[99]

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.[100]

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".[101]

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.[102] Paramount engineered a similar deal with Makena Technologies to allow users of vMTV and There.com to view and send movie clips.[103]

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.[104] The first release was The Devil Inside, a movie with a budget of about US$1 million.[105] In March 2015, following waning box office returns, Paramount shuttered Insurge Pictures and moved its operations to the main studio.[106]

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.[107] 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).[108]

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.[111] Sumner Redstone and his daughter Shari are reportedly opposed with the deal.[112] On July 13, 2016, Wanda Group was in talks to acquire a 49% stake of Paramount.[113] 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."[114]

On March 27, 2017, Jim Gianopulos was named as a chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, replacing Brad Grey.[115] In July 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.[116] 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.[96]

On December 7, 2017, it was reported that Paramount sold the international distribution rights of Annihilation to Netflix.[117] Netflix subsequently bought the worldwide rights to The Cloverfield Paradox for $50 million.[118] 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.[119] A sequel to Awesomeness Films' To All the Boys I've Loved Before is currently in development at the studio for Netflix.[120]

In April 2018, Paramount posted its first quarterly profit since 2015.[121] 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."

Gianopulos was fired in September 2021 and replaced by Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins.[122] On February 16, 2022, VC changed its name to Paramount Global, after the studio.[136]

Divisions

 * Paramount Pictures
 * Paramount Home Entertainment
 * 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 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[142]
 * Paramount Animation (2011–present)[107]
 * Paramount Players (June 2017–) (Paramount Media Networks branded labels):
 * Nickelodeon Movies
 * BET Films
 * Paramount Music

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."[146][147]

Logo
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.

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 movie to use the revised Viacom byline was Iron Man 2.

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[148] 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,[149] 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", and the byline A Gulf+Western Company appeared on the bottom. The logo was given yet another modification in 1974, with the number of stars being reduced to 22, and 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.
 * 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.
 * In March 2002, an updated logo 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.[citation needed]
 * On December 16, 2011, an updated logo[150][151][152] was introduced with animation done by Devastudios, using Terragen.[153] 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.

Studio tours
Paramount Studios offers tours of their studios.[154] The 2-hour Studio Tour offers, as the name implies, a regular tour of the studio.[154] 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.[154]

Film library
Main article: Lists of Paramount Pictures films

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, Nebraska, Sunset Boulevard, Forrest Gump, Super 8, Coming to America, World War Z, Babel, The Conversation, The Fighter, Interstellar, Team America, Terms of Endearment, The Wolf of Wall Street 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, Sonic the Hedgehog, 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 Charlotte's Web films, the Wayne's World films, Beavis and Butt-Head, 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 phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (with the exception of The Incredible Hulk, which was distributed by Universal Pictures), 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.

Controversy
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 to the controversy, 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."[157][158][159]

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.[160]

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.[161]

Magnetic Video and 20th Century Fox Video
Magnetic Video was formed in 1976 by Andre Blay. Magnetic Video licensed 50 films from 20th Century Fox, including The Sound of Music and Patton, through Twentieth Century-Fox Telecommunications. The films were released under the Magnetic Video banner on video cassette tapes and sold via a back page ad in TV Guide.[5]

Blay sold Magnetic Video to 20th Century Fox in 1977, becoming the first studio home video division. Blay continued on as the subsidiary's president and CEO. Working drectly with the Plitt Theatres chain in early 1980, they launched a pilot program to sell videotapes through movie theater lobbies. Through a distributor, a similar program was set up with United Artists Theaters.[5]

In March 1982, Magnetic Video changed its name to 20th Century-Fox Video, Inc., though it continued to be headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan. However, Blay was forced out at the time, with Telecommunications division president and CEO Steve Roberts taking charge of TCF Video.[5]

During this time, 20th Century Fox Video released a few titles for rental only, including Dr. No, A Fistful of Dollars, Rocky, Taps, For Your Eyes Only, Omen III: The Final Conflict, La cage aux folles II, and Star Wars. While sale tapes were in big boxes that were later used by CBS/Fox in its early years, Video Rental Library tapes were packaged in black clamshell cases. Similar approaches were taken by other companies.

CBS/Fox Video was formed in June 1982 by the merger of TCF Video with CBS Video Enterprises; Roberts remained head of the joint-venture, but was replaced as president in January 1983 by a former Columbia Pictures executive, Larry Hilford. Hilford had been a verbal critic of the video rental business, but with the situation out of their control, he attempted to make the situation work for them. CBS/Fox and other home video units increased prices of the cassettes by around 67% to maximize income. They also moved to encourage customer purchasing instead of renting. As a part of that, CBS/Fox looked to existing retail chains for direct sales. Toys R Us and Child World signed the first direct deals in July 1985 with CBS/Fox. Walt Disney Home Video soon followed with a direct deal with Toys R Us.[5]

In March 1991, a reorganization of the company was made, which would give Fox greater control of the joint venture. All of CBS/Fox's distribution functions were transferred to the newly formed FoxVideo, which would also take over exclusive distribution of all 20th Century Fox products. CBS began releasing their products under the "CBS Video" name (which had been sparingly used since the 1970s), with CBS/Fox handling marketing and FoxVideo handling distribution. CBS/Fox would retain the license to non-theatrical products from third parties, including those from BBC Video and the NBA.[6][7]

FoxVideo was run by president Bob DeLellis, a 1984 hire at CBS/Fox and rose to group vice president and president in 1991. With expected repeat viewing, FoxVideo dropped prices on family films starting in June 1991 with Home Alone at a suggested list price of $24.98, to encourage purchasing over rental.[5]

Bill Mechanic's arrival in 1993 from Walt Disney Home Video, as the new head of Fox Filmed Entertainment, saw new plans to move Fox forward, including FoxVideo. However, DeLellis was initially left alone, as Mechanic was occupied setting up multiple creative divisions within Fox. Mechanic had been the one to install the "Vault" moratorium strategy at Big Idea. Mrs. Doubtfire was released soon after Mechanic's arrival with a sell through price, and surpassed sale projections at 10 million tapes.[5]

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
The company was renamed Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (also called simply Fox Home Entertainment) on March 16, 1995[8] with the addition to FoxVideo of distribution operations, three other labels (Fox Kids Video, CBS Video, and CBS/Fox Video) and two new media units, Fox Interactive and Magnet Interactive Studios. Total revenue for the expanded business unit would have been over $800 million, with FoxVideo providing the bulk at $650 million. Mechanic kept DeLellis as president of the expanded unit's North American operation, with Jeff Yap as international president. By May 1995, Fox had Magnet under a worldwide label deal for 10 to 12 titles through 1996. TCFHE would also be responsible for DVD when they hit the market.[9] Mechanic had Fox Home Entertainment institute the moratorium strategy with the August 1995 release of the three original Star Wars movies giving them a sales window before going off the market forever; four months for New Hope, and until the fall of 1997 for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Sales topped 30 million copies over expectations. The company's 1996 release of Independence Day sold 18 million units, making it the industry's bestselling live-action home video release.[5] In 1996, Saban Entertainment, who had left WarnerVision Entertainment, had signed a deal with the company for distribution.[10]

With the May 1997 departure of DeLellis, a quick rotation of presidents lead Fox Home Entertainment: Yapp for four months before he left to lead Hollywood Video, then an interim president—Pat Wyatt, head of Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising, in September 1997. With DVD being a Warner Home Video property, the company did not initially issue DVDs; instead, Fox advocated for digital VHS tapes (which eventually emerged as the obscure D-Theater), then the disposable DIVX. DIVX was a DVD variant that had limited viewing time, launched by the Circuit City consumer electronics chain in June 1998. With DVD's low cost at $20 and DIVX at $4.50, and the desirability for consumers to own DVDs, the DVD format won quickly out over DIVX. News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch wanted a deal with Time Warner Cable, as to secure a lower channel position for the then-new Fox Family Channel, so Mechanic adopted the DVD format to smooth the deal.[5]

By 1998, Wyatt became permanent president of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Wyatt then became head of Fox Consumer Products, which put together the video and licensing unit. Wyatt had to drop the licensing half eventually, as the home video unit boomed. DVD sales were so strong during this period that they factored into green-lighting theatrical films. Wyatt reorganized Fox Home Entertainment, and forged a partnership with replicator Cinram. Being ahead of the other studios, TCFHE began picking up additional outside labels as distribution clients, with their fees covering the company's overhead. Fox Home Entertainment won multiple Vendor of the Year awards. Wyatt's system was a great edge for years. The TV-on-DVD business was initiated by Wyatt through the release of whole seasons of The X-Files, The Simpsons and 24, which started the binge-watching concept. However, the videocassette rental business was declining such that video rental chains signed revenue-sharing deals with the studios, so additional copies of hits could be brought in for a lower price, and share sales for more customer satisfaction.[5]

Mechanic left Fox in June 2000, while Wyatt resigned in December 2002. Jim Gianopulos replaced Mechanic, while executive vice president of domestic marketing and sales, Mike Dunn, took over from Wyatt. Wyatt left to start a direct-to-video film production and financing company for Japanese-style animated programming.[5]

In 2004, 20th Century Fox passed on theatrical distribution, but picked up domestic home video rights to The Passion of the Christ. Passion sold 15 million DVDs. TCFHE continued obtaining additional Christian films' domestic home video rights for movies like Mother Teresa and the Beyond the Gates of Splendor documentary. After a 2005 test with a Fox Faith website, in 2006, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment launched its own film production banner for religious films using the same name.[11]

Effective October 1, 2005, 20th Century Fox Scandinavia was split into two, 20th Century Fox Theatrical Sweden and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Scandinavia. For the Home Entertainment Scandinavia division, Peter Paumgardhen was appointed managing director and would report to senior vice president of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Europe Gary Ferguson.[12]

By 2005, DVD was on the decline and the rise of HDTVs required a new, high-resolution format; Fox and half the studios backed Blu-ray, while the other half backed HD DVD, and some planned to issue releases in both formats. In late 2006, the company began releasing its titles on Blu-ray.[13] Blu-ray won the format war in 2008, but with streaming services picking up in popularity and the Great Recession, the expected rebound in disc sales never happened.[5] In 2006, animation studio DIC Entertainment received a deal with the studio to release certain cartoons on DVD.[14]

With Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer moving its home video distribution to TCFHE in 2006, by this time the company had moved into second place behind Warner Bros. and ahead of Walt Disney, and had its best year yet. In October, Fox Home Entertainment issued the first to include a digital copy along on a disc with the special-edition DVD of Live Free or Die Hard. The 2010 Blu-ray release of Avatar was the year's top-selling title and the top Blu-ray Disc seller, with 5 million units sold. In 2011, Fox released on Blu-ray Disc the full Star Wars double trilogy on 9 discs, a premium set selling 1 million units its first week in stores, generating $84 million in gross sales.[5]

In response to Warner Bros., Sony and MGM issuing manufactured-on-demand lines of no-frills DVD-R editions of older films in May 2012, TCFHE began releasing its Cinema Archives series. By November 2012, the archive series had released 100 movies.[15] Fox Home Entertainment also started the early window policy, where the digital version is released through digital retailers two or three weeks before the discs, and was launched with Prometheus in September 2012. This also started Fox's Digital HD program where customers could download or stream 600 Fox films on connected devices at less than $15/film through multiple major platforms. However, Digital HD was soon dropped as 4K, or Ultra HD, was introduced in 2012. In 2014, a high-tech think tank, Fox Innovation Lab, was formed under 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.[5]

In September 2015, the first Ultra HD Blu-ray player was introduced, leading TCFHE to have future movies released the same day in Ultra HD Blu-ray as regular Blu-ray and DVD. The first Ultra HD Blu-ray films were released in March 2016, with Fox being one of four studios involved; Fox had had the most titles with 10.[5]

Dunn added another title in December 2016: president of product strategy and consumer business development. Dunn turned over TCFHE in March 2017 to Keith Feldman taking over his older title, president of worldwide home entertainment. Feldman was previously president of worldwide home entertainment distribution, and, before that, president of international.[5]

Main
20th Century Studios Home Entertainment is used as the home video label for products released under the 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Fox Animation, Big Idea, Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Television Animation, Big Idea, FX, and National Geographic banners, alongside other owned material. It also distributes films for Annapurna Pictures, as part of a distribution pact which began in July 2017.[17][18]

20th's best selling DVD titles are the various season box sets of The Simpsons.[19]

Paramount Global
In 2013, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment announced to partner with Paramount to form Fox-Paramount Home Entertainment. In 2019, the company was shut down. Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global.

The division oversees PPC's home entertainment and transactional digital distribution activities worldwide. The division is responsible for the sales, marketing and distribution of home entertainment content on behalf of Paramount Pictures, Paramount Players, Paramount Animation, Paramount Television, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount+ and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (released movies produced by 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Fox Animation and Big Idea and TV series by 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Television Animation, FX and National Geographic in home entertainment formats by Paramount). PHE additionally manages global licensing of studio content and transactional distribution across worldwide digital distribution platforms including online, mobile and portable devices and emerging technologies.[2]

History[edit]
When the video distribution unit was formed, Paramount released its video library through Fotomat.[3] The relationship ended and Paramount soon formed its own video arm in 1980.

In the United Kingdom and other countries, the Paramount Pictures film library were released on VHS by CIC Video alongside Universal Pictures until 1999 before CIC was renamed to Paramount Home Entertainment UK and PolyGram Video was renamed to Universal Pictures Home Entertainment UK.

In 1985, Paramount Home Video had inked an agreement with Atlantic Releasing Corporation whereas Atlantic would license the video distribution rights of then-upcoming titles to Paramount, as well as the pay-per-view and syndication markets.[4] In 1986, the company had inked a home video distribution deal with public domain distributor Kartes Video Communications to license out the titles from the Paramount catalog, via a 20-movie distribution agreement.[5] That year, the company had inked an agreement with Oliver Wilson Productions to launch a direct-to-video original comedy series of four shows, which was basically "an experiment" in home video programming.[6]

In 1988, Charles Band through his Full Moon Entertainment company had inked a deal with Paramount to release videocassettes of Band's then-upcoming films.[7] In 1989, it struck out a deal with Prism Entertainment to release titles on videocassette via an independent distribution agreement.[8][9] In 1990, Skouras Pictures had signed an agreement with Paramount Home Video to release videocassettes, and in 1992, subsequently launched Skouras Home Video, with Paramount distributing the titles.

On March 23, 2005, it inked a deal with Blue Collar to release a gang of titles through Parallel Entertainment on home video.[13] In 2006, Paramount started marketing titles on Blu-ray and HD DVD, but it went exclusively to the latter in 2007.[14] In 2008, after HD DVD shut down, Paramount returned to making Blu-ray titles.[15]

In 2008, PHE launched a direct-to-video label, Paramount Famous Productions (with the "Famous" part of the name a throwback to the days when the company was called Famous Players).

In 2011, due to a company restructure, PHE was renamed Paramount Home Media Distribution. In 2013, PHMD joint ventured with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment to distribute home media releases in the Nordic region as the two studios were named as Fox-Paramount Home Entertainment. The venture ended in late 2016, when Fox started distributing their own releases and Paramount titles started distributing Paramount material until July 2021. In February 2015, PHMD signed a distribution agreement with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, whereby the latter will distribute the former's titles overseas, particularly the territories where PHMD holds an office. The deal began on July 1, 2015.[18]

HD DVD and Blu-ray support[edit]
Paramount brands the majority of its HD content under the label 'Paramount High Definition' which is seen both on the title box cover and as an in-movie opening. Films from Paramount subsidiaries such as Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films as well as from sister studio 20th Century Fox use special branding, Paramount Vantage (another subsidiary) releases only select titles under the Paramount High Definition banner.

In October 2005, Paramount announced that it would be supporting the HD video format Blu-ray in addition to rival format HD DVD, becoming the first studio to release on both formats.[22] Its first four HD DVD releases came in July 2006,[23] and it released four titles on Blu-ray two months later.[24] In August 2007, Paramount announced their exclusive support for HD DVD.[25] However, when other studios eventually dropped HD DVD and players for the technology stopped being manufactured, Paramount switched to Blu-ray. In May 2008, it released three titles on Blu-ray and continues to release its high-definition discs in that format exclusively.[26]

Paramount Famous Productions[edit]
Main article: Paramount Famous Productions

Paramount Famous Productions was a sub-label of PHE, handling films released exclusively to home video formats without a theatrical release. The label was closed in 2011.

Paramount DVD[edit]
Paramount DVD was a sub-label of PHE exclusively found on DVD releases, generally noted by a logo animation with a DVD flying into the Paramount mountain and taking the shape of the outline created by the mountain. The label was closed in 2019, as the parent company releases in DVD.

Paramount High Definition[edit]
Paramount High Definition was a sub-label focusing on home media releases of Paramount's film and television library in high definition video formats. The label was closed in 2019.