Paramount Pictures

For the parent company, a mass media and entertainment conglomerate, see Paramount Global.

Paramount Pictures Corporation
Type	Division
Industry	Film
Predecessor(s)	Famous Players Film Company Famous Players–Lasky Corporation Republic Pictures
Founded	May 8, 1912 (1912-05-08)
Founder(s)	William Wadsworth Hodkinson Adolph Zukor Jesse L. Lasky
Headquarters	5555 Melrose Avenue
City	Hollywood, California
Country	U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Brian Robbins (chairman and CEO)
Products	Motion pictures
Parent	Paramount Global
Divisions	Paramount Home Entertainment Paramount Players Paramount Animation Paramount Television Studios Paramount Music
Subsidiaries	Rede Telecine (12.5%) United International Pictures (50%)
Website	paramountpictures.com

Paramount Pictures Corporation (also known simply as Paramount) is an American film and television production and distribution company and the namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California.

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

History

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Investments

DreamWorks Pictures

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Another asset of the former DreamWorks owned by Paramount is the pre-2008 DreamWorks Television library, which is currently distributed by Paramount's sister company CBS Media Ventures; it includes Spin City, High Incident, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and On the Lot.

CBS library

Independent company Hollywood Classics represents Paramount with the theatrical distribution of all the films produced by the various motion picture divisions of CBS over the years, as a result of the 2000 Viacom/CBS merger.

Paramount has outright video distribution to the aforementioned CBS library with some exceptions; less-demanded content is usually released manufactured-on-demand by CBS themselves or licensed to Visual Entertainment Inc. As of the 2019 Viacom/CBS merger, this library now includes the theatrical distribution of Terrytoons short films on behalf of Paramount Animation, while CBS Media Ventures owns the television distribution. Until 2009, the video rights to My Fair Lady were with original theatrical distributor Warner Bros., under license from CBS (the video license to that film has now reverted to Paramount).

Units

Divisions

• Paramount Pictures
  • Paramount Home Entertainment
  • Paramount Licensing, Inc.
  • Paramount Pictures International
  • Paramount Players
    • Nickelodeon Movies
    • BET Films
  • 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
• Paramount Animation
• Paramount Music

Joint ventures

• United International Pictures (co-owned with Comcast's Universal Pictures)
• Rede Telecine (co-owned with Amazon's Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, The Walt Disney Company's The Walt Disney Company Latin America, Grupo Globo's Canais Globo and Comcast's Universal Pictures)

Former divisions, subsidiaries, and joint ventures

• Paramount Digital Entertainment (Dormant)
• Paramount Television (original) (now CBS Studios)
  • Big Ticket Entertainment (semi-in-name-only since 2006; currently produces Judge Judy and Hot Bench)
  • Spelling Television (in-name-only since 2006)
  • Viacom Productions (folded into PNT in 2004)
  • Wilshire Court Productions (shut down in 2003)
  • Paramount Domestic Television (now CBS Media Ventures)
    • Folded Viacom Enterprises in 1995 and Rysher Entertainment and Worldvision Enterprises in 1999
    • RTV News, Inc., producer of Real TV and Maximum Exposure
  • United Paramount Network (UPN) – formerly a joint venture with United Television, now part of Nexstar/Paramount Global/Warner Bros. Discovery joint venture The CW Television Network
  • Paramount Stations Group (now CBS Television Stations)
  • USA Networks (also including the Sci-Fi Channel) – Paramount owned a stake starting in 1982, 50% owner (with Universal Pictures) from 1987 until 1997, when Paramount/Viacom sold their stake to Universal (now part of NBCUniversal)
  • Paramount International Television (merged with CBS Broadcast International in 2004 to form CBS Studios International)
• Fleischer Studios – purchased in 1942 and organized as Famous Studios (which shut down in 1967); library folded into Paramount Animation.
• Terrytoons – purchased by CBS Films (later Viacom International) in 1956; theatrical library moved to Paramount Animation following re-merger of ViacomCBS in 2019.
• Paramount Famous Productions – direct-to-video division
• Paramount Parks (Purchased by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company in 2006)
• Paramount Classics/Paramount Vantage – Paramount Classics merged into Paramount Vantage; the latter then went dormant in December 2013
• DW Studios, LLC (also DW Pictures) – defunct, holding film library and rights, principal officers left to recreate DreamWorks as an independent company
  • DW Funding LLC – DreamWorks live-action library (pre-09/16/2005; DW Funding, LLC) sold to Soros Strategic Partners and Dune Entertainment II and purchased back in 2010
  • Go Fish Pictures – Arthouse/Independent film unit for used distributing DreamWorks Pictures foreign films; defunct in 2007 after parent company's sale
• Paramount Theatres Limited – Founded 1930 in the United Kingdom with the opening of a cinema in Manchester. Several Paramount Theatres had opened or had been acquired in the United Kingdom during the 1930s before being sold to The Rank Organisation becoming part of the Odeon Cinemas chain in 1939.
• Epix – 49.76% owner (with Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer and Lionsgate) from 2009 until 2017, when Paramount/Viacom and Lionsgate sold their stakes to MGM
• Insurge Pictures – micro-budget film division (March 2010 – 2015); absorbed into Paramount itself
• Republic Pictures
• "Continental Café" – the commissary run by Pauline Kessinger until the cafe was replaced by the Zukor Building in 1983.

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."

Logo

File:DarioCampanile.Paramount.jpg

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.

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 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, 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", the byline A Gulf+Western Company appeared on the bottom, and the number of stars being reduced to 22. In 1974, another redesign was made, with 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.
• A black and white logo with "A Paramount Picture" appeared in the 1980 live action film Popeye, resembling the one used on Paramount's classic Popeye cartoon shorts.
• 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 (Studio Productions), 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 by Pittard Sullivan made its debuted with South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, released on June 30, 1999.

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

• In March 2002, an updated logo by BUF Compagnie 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 made by PIC Collective 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 was introduced with animation done by Devastudios, using Terragen and Autodesk Maya. 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.
• The word "Pictures" was restored to the bottom of the Paramount logo in 2022 after ViacomCBS took on the Paramount name and branding for its entire operation; this revised logo used for printed materials and merchandising, while still appearing as simply "Paramount" on-screen, no longer uses the byline.

Studio tours

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

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, Sunset Boulevard, Forrest Gump, Coming to America, World War Z, Babel, The Conversation, The Fighter, Interstellar, Terms of Endearment, The Wolf of Wall Street and A Quiet Place; as well as the Godfather, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible film series.

Film series

Title	Release date	No. Films	Notes
Sophie Lang	1934–37
Hopalong Cassidy	1935–41	41
Bulldog Drummond	1937–39	3
The Aldrich Family	1939–44	11
Road to ...	1940–52	6
The War of the Worlds	1953–2005	2
Love Story	1970–78
The Godfather	1972–90	3
Charlotte's Web	1973–2003; 2006
Bad News Bears	1976–2005	4
Peanuts	1977–80	2
Grease	1978–82	2
Star Trek	1979–present	13
Friday the 13th	1980–89; 2009	12	Co-production with Warner Bros. Pictures (1980–2009) and New Line Cinema (2009)
Indiana Jones	1981–2023	5	Distribution only; Co-production with Lucasfilm. Studio credit only (2023)
Footloose	1984–2011	2
Beverly Hills Cop	1984–present	3
Crocodile Dundee	1986–2001		Co-production with Hoyts Distribution (1986–88), 20th Century Fox (1986) and Universal Pictures (2001)
Top Gun	1986–present	2
The Naked Gun	1988–present	4
Coming to America	1988–2021	2
Jack Ryan	1990–2014	5
The Addams Family	1991–93	2	co-production with Scott Rudin Productions, Columbia Pictures and Orion Pictures (both 1991)
Mission: Impossible	1996–present	7
Rugrats	1998–2003	3	Co-production with Nickelodeon Movies
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider	2001–03	2
Jackass	2002–present	6
SpongeBob SquarePants	2004–present	3	Co-production with Nickelodeon Movies
Mean Girls	2004–24
Shrek	2007–11		Distribution only; Co-production with DreamWorks Animation
Transformers	2007–present	7	Co-production with DreamWorks Pictures (2007–09) and Hasbro
Paranormal Activity
Cloverfield	2008–present	3
Kung Fu Panda	2008–11	2	Distribution only; Co-production with DreamWorks Animation
Madagascar	2008–12
Marvel Cinematic Universe	2008–13	6	Distribution only; Co-production with Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Studios (2008–11), Studio credit only (2012–13)
G.I. Joe	2009–present	3
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	2014–present		Co-production with Nickelodeon Movies
Terminator	2015–19	2	Co-production with Skydance (2015–19), 20th Century Fox and Tencent Pictures (both 2019)
XXX	2017–present	1
A Quiet Place	2018–present	2
Sonic the Hedgehog	2020–present		Co-production with Sega Sammy Group
PAW Patrol	2021–present		Co-production with Nickelodeon Movies and Spin Master Entertainment
Scream	2022–present

Highest-grossing films

 Indicates films playing in theatres in the week commencing 17 January 2025.

Template:Columns-start

Highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada

Rank	Title	Year	Box office gross
1	Top Gun: Maverick Template:Double dagger	2022	$718,732,821
2	Titanic Template:Double dagger	1997	$666,078,628
3	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	2009	$402,111,870
4	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	2011	$352,390,543
5	Forrest Gump Template:Double dagger	1994	$330,252,182
6	Shrek the Third	2007	$322,719,944
7	Transformers		$319,246,193
8	Iron Man	2008	$318,412,101
9	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull		$317,101,119
10	Iron Man 2	2010	$312,433,331
11	Star Trek	2009	$257,730,019
12	Raiders of the Lost Ark Template:Double dagger	1981	$248,159,971
13	Transformers: Age of Extinction	2014	$245,439,076
14	Shrek Forever After	2010	$238,736,787
15	Beverly Hills Cop	1984	$234,760,478
16	War of the Worlds	2005	$234,280,354
17	Star Trek Into Darkness	2013	$228,778,661
18	Mission: Impossible – Fallout	2018	$220,159,104
19	Ghost	1990	$217,631,306
20	How to Train Your Dragon	2010	$217,581,231
21	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted	2012	$216,391,482
22	Kung Fu Panda	2008	$215,434,591
23	Mission: Impossible 2	2000	$215,409,889
24	Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol	2011	$209,397,903
25	World War Z	2013	$202,359,711

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Highest-grossing films worldwide

Rank	Title	Year	Box office gross
1	Titanic Template:Double dagger	1997	$2,218,011,297
2	Top Gun: Maverick Template:Double dagger	2022	$1,495,696,292
3	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	2011	$1,123,794,079
4	Transformers: Age of Extinction	2014	$1,104,054,072
5	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	2009	$836,303,693
6	Shrek the Third	2007	$813,367,380
7	Mission: Impossible – Fallout	2018	$791,017,452
8	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	2008	$786,636,033
9	Shrek Forever After	2010	$752,600,867
10	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted	2012	$746,921,274
11	Transformers	2007	$709,709,780
12	Interstellar	2014	$701,729,206
13	Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol	2011	$694,713,380
14	Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation	2015	$682,330,139
15	Forrest Gump Template:Double dagger	1994	$677,945,399
16	Kung Fu Panda 2	2011	$665,692,281
17	Kung Fu Panda	2008	$631,744,560
18	Iron Man 2	2010	$623,933,331
19	Transformers: The Last Knight	2017	$605,425,157
20	Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa	2008	$603,900,354
21	War of the Worlds	2005	$603,873,119
22	Iron Man	2008	$585,174,222
23	Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One	2023	$567,535,383
24	Puss in Boots	2011	$554,987,477
25	Mission: Impossible 2	2000	$546,388,105

Template:Columns-end Template:Double dagger — Includes theatrical reissue(s)

Latino and Hispanic representation

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See also

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• CBS Studios
• Paramount Television Studios
• List of Paramount executives
• List of Paramount Global television programs

Notes

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Further reading

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• Berg, A. Scott. Goldwyn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.
• DeMille, Cecil B. Autobiography. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959.
• Dick, Bernard F. Engulfed: the death of Paramount Pictures and the birth of corporate Hollywood. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Press Kentucky Scholarly, 2001.
• Eames, John Douglas, with additional text by Robert Abele. The Paramount Story: The Complete History of the Studio and Its Films. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
• Evans, Robert. The Kid Stays in the Picture. New York: Hyperion Press, 1994.
• Gabler, Neal. An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. New York: Crown Publishers, 1988.
• Lasky, Jesse L. with Don Weldon, I Blow My Own Horn. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1957.
• Mordden, Ethan. The Hollywood Studios. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
• Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
• Sklar, Robert. Movie-Made America. New York: Vintage, 1989.
• Zukor, Adolph, with Dale Kramer. The Public Is Never Wrong: The Autobiography of Adolph Zukor. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1953.

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External links

• Template:MHL catalog
• [TBA Leo Morgan Paramount Publix and Strand Theatre materials, 1926–1947], held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

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