Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games, and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
This Is Cinerama is a 1952 American documentary film directed by Mike Todd, Michael Todd Jr., Walter A. Thompson and Fred Rickey and starring Lowell Thomas. It is designed to introduce the widescreen process Cinerama, which broadens the aspect ratio so that the viewer's peripheral vision is involved. This Is Cinerama premiered on September 30, 1952, at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.
Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146-degrees of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporation. It was the first of several novel processes introduced during the 1950s when the movie industry was reacting to competition from television. Cinerama was presented to the public as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs, and audience members often dressed in their best attire for the evening.
Major film studios are production and distribution companies that release a substantial number of films annually and consistently command a significant share of box office revenue in a given market. In the American and international markets, the major film studios, often known simply as the majors or the Big Five studios, are commonly regarded as the five diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approximately 80 to 85% of U.S. box office revenue. The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary motion picture business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate.
The Cinerama Dome is a movie theater located at 6360 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Designed to exhibit widescreen Cinerama films, it opened November 7, 1963. The original developer was William R. Forman, founder of Pacific Theatres. The Cinerama Dome continued as a leading first-run theater, most recently as part of the ArcLight Hollywood complex, until it closed temporarily in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in California. The ArcLight chain closed permanently in April 2021, with the theater never having reopened. In June 2022, it was announced that there were plans to reopen it and the former ArcLight Hollywood under a new name, Cinerama Hollywood.
The TCL Chinese Theatre, commonly referred to as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Century Theatres is a movie theater chain that operates many multiplexes in the western United States, primarily in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. In its later years, it had expanded into the inter-mountain states, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Alaska and parts of the Midwestern United States. Founded in 1941, the chain was headquartered in San Rafael, California until it was acquired by Cinemark Theatres from Plano, Texas in 2006. Many now-Cinemark-owned theaters continue to operate under the Century brand.
A movie palace is a large, elaborately decorated movie theater built from the 1910s to the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 1925 and 1930. With the advent of television, movie attendance dropped, while the rising popularity of large multiplex chains in the 1980s and 1990s signaled the obsolescence of single-screen theaters. Many movie palaces were razed or converted into multiple-screen venues or performing arts centers, though some have undergone restoration and reopened to the public as historic buildings.
El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple are owned by The Walt Disney Company and serve as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.
A studio system is a method of filmmaking wherein the production and distribution of films is dominated by a small number of large movie studios. It is most often used in reference to Hollywood motion picture studios during the early years of the Golden Age of Hollywood from 1927 to 1948, wherein studios produced films primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract, and dominated exhibition through vertical integration, i.e., the ownership or effective control of distributors and exhibition, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques such as block booking.
The Seattle Cinerama Theatre is a landmark movie theater in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. The theater opened in 1963 and was renovated in the 1990s after its acquisition by Paul Allen. The Cinerama was closed in May 2020. At the time of its 2020 closure, it was one of only three movie theaters in the world capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films. In 2023, the theater was purchased by the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and reopened on December 14, 2023 as SIFF Cinema Downtown due to trademark issues with the "Cinerama" name.
Fox Theatre is a historic movie theater located on Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton, California. Built in 1925 as part of the chain of Fox Theatres, the theater was closed and abandoned in 1987. The Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation is currently in the process of fundraising and restoring the theater.
The Hollywood Pantages Theatre, formerly known as RKO Pantages Theatre and Fox-Pantages Theatre, also known as The Pantages, is a live theater and former movie theater located at 6233 Hollywood Boulevard, near Hollywood and Vine, in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, the theater was the last built by the vaudeville impresario Alexander Pantages and also the last movie palace built in Hollywood.
ArcLight Cinemas was an American movie theater chain that operated from 2002 to 2021. It was owned by The Decurion Corporation, which was also the parent company of Pacific Theatres. The ArcLight chain opened in 2002 as a single theater, the ArcLight Hollywood in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and later expanded to eleven locations in California, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois.
The Strand Theatre was an early movie palace located at 1579 Broadway, at the northwest corner of 47th Street and Broadway in Times Square, New York City. Opened in 1914, the theater was later known as the Mark Strand Theatre, the Warner Theatre, and the Cinerama Theatre. It closed as the RKO Warner Twin Theatre, and was demolished in 1987.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The Old Warner Brothers Studio, now known as the Sunset Bronson Studios, is a motion picture, radio and television production facility located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. The studio was the site where the first talking feature film, The Jazz Singer, was filmed in 1927.
The RKO Boston Theatre was a movie theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, located at 616 Washington Street, near Essex Street in the Boston Theater District. It opened as the Keith-Albee Boston Theatre on October 5, 1925.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on certain films in the early 2020s, mirroring its impacts across all arts sectors. Across the world, and to varying degrees, cinemas and movie theaters were closed, festivals were cancelled or postponed, and film releases were moved to future dates or delayed indefinitely. Due to cinemas and movie theaters closing, the global box office dropped by billions of dollars, streaming saw a significant increase in popularity, and the stock of film exhibitors dropped dramatically. Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released by mid-March 2020 were postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also being halted. This in turn created openings for independent cinema productions to receive wider exposure.
The Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District is a historic district that consists of twelve blocks between the 6200 and 7000 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. This strip of commercial and retail businesses, which includes more than 100 buildings, is recognized for its significance with the entertainment industry, particularly Hollywood and its golden age, and it also features the predominant architecture styles of the 1920s and 1930s.
