While an argument can be made that the company existed in some form before, it was on April 4 1923 that Warner Bros. Pictures Incorporated was formally organized. The studio pioneered the use of sound in movies and ushered in the era of talkies. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, Warner Bros. was one of the Big Five studios. While experiencing some difficulties in the Fifties, Warner Bros. expanded into television during the decade. In 1969 Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was bought by Kinney National Company.
It was in September 1971 that Kinney National Company spun-off its non-entertainment interests (mostly parking and property management services) into a new company, National Kinney Corporation. As to National Kinney Company, in November 1971 it bought the cable television operator Television Communications Corporation. It was in February 1972 that National Kinney Company would be renamed Warner Communications. Television Communications Corporation was then renamed Warner Cable in 1973. Warner Cable would later be sold to Charter Communications and became part of their Spectrum brand. As to Warner Communications, the conglomerate was the parent of Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Pictures, National Periodical Publications (soon to be officially named DC Comics), the Warner Music Group (WMG), Warner Books, and Warner Cable.
The Seventies would prove to be a fairly good decade for Warner Bros., with such hit films as Dirty Harry (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), The Exorcist (1973), Blazing Saddles (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), All the President's Men (1976), and Superman (1978). The Eighties would also prove to be a fairly good decade with regards to movies for the studio, either producing and/or distributing such films as Superman II (1980), The Right Stuff (1983), The Colour Purple (1985), Lethal Weapon (1987), Stand and Deliver (1988), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and Batman (1989).
Warner Bros. also continued to expand in the Eighties. In 1989 Warner Bros. bought Lorimar-Telepictures, which had produced such television shows as The Waltons, Eight is Enough, Dallas, and ALF. The acquisition also gave Warner Bros. the Allied Artists library and Rankin/Bass's post-September 1974 library. The acquisition gave Warner Bros. control of the old MGM lot in Culver City as well. In other words, Warner Bros. now had two studio lots: the First National/Warner Bros. lot in Burbank and the old MGM lot in Culver City.
While Warner Bros. had several successful movies in the Eighties, during the decade Warner Communications began experiencing financial difficulties. Much of this was due to the fact that Warner Communications owned Atari, Inc., and as a result took a hit from the video game crash of 1983. Warner Communications then sold off Atari. It was later in the decade that Warner Communications announced a merger with Time, Inc., publisher of such magazines as Time and Life.
The merger between Warner Communications and Time, Inc. was very nearly derailed by a rival conglomerate, Paramount Communications, who attempted a hostile takeover for Time, Inc. After Time, Inc thwarted Paramount Communications' hostile bid, Paramount Communications filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block the Time, Inc./Warner Communications merger. The court ruled in favour of Time, Inc., and as a result Time, Inc. and Warner Communications merged to become Time Warner.
The Nineties would prove to be a busy decade for Warner Bros. It was in 1993 that Time Warner entered into a joint venture with Chris-Craft Industries to launch the Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN for short), a programming block of dramas targeted at the key demographic of television viewers. PTEN was launched as a potential fifth television network, although that never came to pass. Among the shows aired as part of PTEN were Babylon 5, Kung Fu, and Time Trax. The demise of PTEN would come about because of the creation of two new television networks. As early as October 1993 Chris-Craft Industries announced the formation of the United Paramount Network (UPN) as a joint venture with Paramount Television. It was in November 1993 that Time Warner announced its intention to launch its own network,. The WB, in conjunction with the Tribune Company.
The WB launched on January 11 1995, its first show being the debut episode of The Wayan Brothers. The fledgeling network began with only one night of programming and gradually added more nights over time. It was in September 1995 that The WB added a weekday and Saturday morning programming block called "Kids' WB." A few shows with roots in the history of Warner Bros. and DC Comics aired on the Kids' WB, including some shows that had originally aired elsewhere. These included the shows Animaniacs, The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Superman: The Animated Series, Bugs 'n' Daffy, and more. As to The WB itself, it would produce some memorable shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Felicity, Angel, Smallville, and Supernatural.
Unfortunately, The WB would not be a success. In part this was because the network failed to expand beyond an extremely young demographic (12 to 24 years old) to the key demographic desired by Madison Avenue. Much of the reason for the network's failure may also have been because there did not appear to be enough room for two fledgeling networks, UPN having only launched days after The WB. It was then on January 24 2006 that , CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment announced the closures of UPN and The WB respectively At the same time they announced their plans to launch a new network, The CW, as a joint venture. The CW launched on January 24 2008. Like The WB before it, it drew heavily upon DC Comics. Among its biggest successes would be shows based on DC Comics superheroes, including Arrow, The Flash, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Unfortunately, The CW never proved to be profitable and WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS sold the network to Nexstar Media Group last year.
It was in 1996, the year after The WB launched, that Time Warner acquired the Turner Broadcasting System, which owned the successful cable channels TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, and CNN. Over the years the Turner Broadcasting System had also acquired several film libraries. In 1986 Turner bought MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian. Turner sold MGM/UA Entertainment Co. back to Kirk Kerkorian almost immediately, but kept MGM's pre-1986 library, the United States/Canadian distribution, rights to the RKO library, and the Associated Artists Productions library (which included Warner Bros. pre-1950 movies, and the Fleischer Studios/Famous Studios Popeye cartoons). In buying Turner, then, Time Warner effectively returned ownership of Warner Bros.' pre-1950 movies to Warner Bros. itself. In 1991 Turner acquired the Hanna-Barbera animation studio, so that Time Warner now owned the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons as well.
Warner Bros. would continue to be successful into the 21st Century. In 2012 it would become one of only two studios (the others being Disney and Universal) to release two movies that crossed the billion dollar mark in the same year with The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Its parent conglomerate would also undergo changes. It was in 2013 that Time, Inc. was spun off into a separate company. It was in 2018 that Time Warner was acquired by AT&T. AT&T renamed the company WarnerMedia.
It was last year that AT&T spun off Warner Media, which then merged with Discovery, Inc. to form the new company Warner Bros. Discovery. Discovery, Inc. was a company that owned such cable channels as the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, the Food Network, HGTV, and other cable channels centred on documentary shows and reality shows (some of them of questionable quality).
It is difficult to say where Warner Bros. Discovery will go from here, but if they wish to be successful they would best draw upon the Warner Bros. legacy. Warner Bros. is one of the most successful studios of all time. Not only were they one of the Big Five during the Golden Age of Hollywood, but they are still a major studio today. During the Golden Age, MGM's slogan was "more stars than there are in the heavens," but the slogan may have been more true of Warner Bros. Through the years such well known stars as Rin Tin Tin, John Garfield, Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall, and James Dean have all been under contract to Warner Bros.
It was with such stars that Warner Bros. produced some of the greatest movies of all time. Indeed, in AFI's list of the all time greatest movies, AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, there are no less than 10 Warner Bros. movies, more than any other studio. Many of the studio's classics from the Golden Age are still recognizable to even casual viewers today. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), Rebel without a Cause (1955), among others, are still well-known to audiences. Of course, Warner Bros. did not only produce feature films. They may actually be best known for their classic theatrical cartoons. Over the years, they developed a large roster of highly successful cartoon characters, including Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Sylvester, and yet others. Bugs Bunny may well be the most successful animated character of all time. He has appeared in more movies than any other cartoon character, so many that according to Guinness World Records he is the ninth most portrayed character in film.
Of course, Warner Bros. expanded into television in the Fifties, and many of its classic television shows are still watched to this day. Cheyenne, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, F Troop, Kung Fu, Wonder Woman, Night Court, ER, and The Gilmore Girls, among others, are still popular with television viewers. Warner Bros. would also expand into streaming, producing such streaming television shows as The Flight Attendant, Titans (based on the DC comic book of the same name), Doom Patrol (based on the DC comic book of the same name), and others.
In its 100 years Warner Bros. has gone from being an independent studio to one of the Big Five to a multimedia giant. They produced some of the greatest feature films of all time. They produced some of the greatest theatrical animated shorts of time. They produced some of the greatest television shows of all time. With any luck Warner Bros. will last another 100 years, producing yet more classics.
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