Paramount Pictures

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Paramount Pictures Corporation

 Famous Players Film Company

(1912–1916)
 Famous Players-Lasky Corporation
Formerly
(1916–1924)
 Paramount Famous Lasky
Corporation (1924–1936)

Type Subsidiary

Industry Film

Founded May 8, 1912; 108 years ago

William Wadsworth Hodkinson

Founders Adolph Zukor
Jesse L. Lasky

5555 Melrose Avenue,

Hollywood, California
Headquarters
,

United States

Area served Worldwide

Key people Jim Gianopulos (chairman & CEO)

Products Motion pictures

 Parent ViacomCBS

 Paramount Home Entertainment

 Paramount Digital Entertainment
Divisions  Paramount Animation
 Paramount Players
 Paramount Television Studios

 Miramax (49%)
 United International Pictures
Subsidiaries (50%)
 Rede Telecine

Website www.paramount.com

Paramount Pictures Corporation (also known simply as Paramount) is an American film

studio and subsidiary of ViacomCBS. It is the fifth oldest film studio in the world,[1] the
second oldest film studio in the United States, and the sole member of the "Big Five" film
studios still located in Los Angeles.

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 22 actors and actresses under contract and honored
each with a star on the logo.[2] In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood
studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only.[3] The company's headquarters and
studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California, United States.[4]

Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).[5]

Contents
 1 History

o 1.1 Famous Players Film Company

o 1.2 Famous Players-Lasky

 1.2.1 Publix, Balaban and Katz, Loew's competition and wonder

theaters

o 1.3 1920s and 1931–40: Receivership

o 1.4 1941–50: United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.

o 1.5 1951–66: Split and after

  1.5.1 The DuMont Network

o 1.6 1966–70: Early Gulf+Western era

o 1.7 1971–80: CIC formation and high-concept era

o 1.8 1980–94: Continual success

o 1.9 1989–94: Paramount Communications

o 1.10 1994–2005: Dolgen/Lansing and "old" Viacom era

o 1.11 2005–present: Paramount today

 1.11.1 CBS/Viacom split

 1.11.2 DreamWorks acquisition

 1.11.3 History since 2006

 1.11.4 CBS/Viacom merger

 2 Investments

o 2.1 DreamWorks Pictures

o 2.2 CBS library

 3 Units

o 3.1 Divisions

o 3.2 Joint ventures

o 3.3 Former divisions, subsidiaries, and joint ventures

o 3.4 Other interests

 4 Logo

 5 Studio tours

 6 Film library

o 6.1 Highest-grossing films

 7 Controversy

 8 See also
  9 Notes

 10 References

 11 Further reading

 12 External links

History
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.

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.[6] 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,
near Los Angeles, for his first feature film, The Squaw Man.

Paramount Pictures' first logo, based on a design by its founder William Wadsworth Hodkinson, used
from 1917 to 1967.

Starting in 1914, both Lasky and Famous Players released their films through a start-up
company, Paramount Pictures Corporation, organized early that year by a Utah theatre owner,
W. W. Hodkinson, who had bought and merged several smaller firms. Hodkinson and actor,
director, 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