Introduction:
Warner Bros. is an international mass media and entertainment industry. They are known for the studios, animation, cartoons and, feature films. Warner Bros. is one of the companies that constitute the Big Five American film studios. They are also a member of the Motion Picture Association that represents the above-mentioned five major film studios. The five studios include Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures. Here we are going to see about Who Owns Warner Brothers?
The parent company of Warner Bros. is Time Warner. Time Warner, was acquired by the US telecom company AT&T. AT&T is an American Telephone &Telegraph Company based in Dallas, Texas. After being acquired by AT&T it was rebranded as Warner Media in 2019. There were minor tweaks made in the logo as well as the intro music and, this was first used in Nolan’s Tenet. As of 2021 Warner Bros. is owned by AT&T.
History of Warner Bros.:
The original Warner Brothers were Sam, Albert, Harry and, Jack. They had founded the company in 1923 and were based off in Burbank, California. In entertainment, feature film, television, home entertainment, and, the production they are the lead runners. Be it to create the wizarding world of Rowling or the DC Comics Warner Bros have almost covered it all.
They are the ones to start with the sync sound in 1926 which set off a new era in filmmaking. Whenever the sound is recorded along with the movie made it is called a sync sound. Until then, movies did not have sounds recorded and, Vitaphone helped bring about this change in movie making. When introduced Western Electric and Bell Telephone Labs nobody had shown an interest except for Warner Bros. During this time they were a minor studio and established the Vitaphone Corporation in April 1926.
The growth faced by Warner Bros was immense, in the sense that they had transformed from feature films to animation, television, and production. They have 7 subsidiary companies and a share of the CW Television Network. Time Warner Inc. had made Warner Bros. be a subsidiary of it. The same Time Warner Inc. was acquired by American Television & Telephone Company from Dallas, Texas.
Rebranding after being acquired by AT&T:
Time Warner is the home of HBO, CNN, Turner, Warner Bros. Studio and, many more. John Stankey was named as the new CEO of the company after the rebranding was done. When asked about the change in name from Time Warner the CEO stated that there was not much of a discern between Time Warner, the media company, and Time Warner which also happens to be a former cable company.
The acquiring of Time Warner was viewed as one of the largest acquisition deals to be stricken in the last decade. After the merging, the company had been focusing on bringing up their game in streaming services over 4 billion homes by using HBO. During this, other contenders such as Netflix and Amazon have been ruling in the streaming section.
WarnerMedia merges with Discovery:
It was announced earlier this year about the merger of WarnerMedia with that of Discovery. Although after this merger, the company might get rebranded as Warner Bros. Discovery. The Discovery is a register for reality TV, sports and, many more. Though it got announced later that WarnerMedia will be holding a share of 79% considering that it is the larger of the two companies.
It was later announced, by David Zaslav, the CEO of Discovery, that after the rebranding they will be borrowing a slogan from a Warner Bros. classic movie The Maltese Falcon for the slogan. The slogan states, ‘ the stuff that dreams are made of ‘.
After merging WarnerMedia and Discovery, there might be plans to integrate the subsidiaries. Discovery had recently launched Discovery Plus and WarnerMedia owns HBO Max. They might combine to form a single company and this is expected to be completed by end of 2022.
Rise of HBO:
It is evident during the pandemic times that there has been a rise in the need for streaming platforms and Amazon and Netflix had the upper hand. After the rebranding with AT&T, the CEO had his eyes set on making HBO more accessible and putting up a fight with streaming sectors.
Netflix was already producing the Netflix Originals and this was being streamed all across the world.
HBO focused more on churning out originals and mini-series. It is difficult to hold a viewer’s attention for a long time or maybe even more than 15 minutes when we consider the fact that there is so much content available out there nowadays. Due to this reason, there were headlines made by HBO stating how the employees were pressured into spinning out content to compete with the other streaming giants.
They had focused on making a 20-minute episode instead of a 60-minute episode since this might be easier to hold the attention of a viewer. We must remember that HBO is still home to some of the famous characters that made up our childhoods or some periods. This legacy could not be compromised due to the demand for shorter episodes.
Characters owned by Warner Bros.:
Daffy Duck is considered the oldest Warner Bros. character being the best friend of Bugs Bunny. He appeared in the Looney Tunes as a recurring character. The Powerpuff Girls are also from Warner Bros. Looney Tunes was aired between 1930 to 1969. It had been launched during a time considered as the golden age of American Animation. Looney Tunes was initially launched in Black and White from 1930 to 1943 then shifted to technicolor from 1942 to 1969 and later in cinecolor during the late 1940s.
The Wizarding World created by J.K. Rowling is owned by Warner Bros. Apart from this, they had also distributed the movies launched such as the Harry Potter series and the spin-offs.
The DC Comics characters are also owned by Warner Bros. Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman and, many more DC Comic characters fall under the same studio. Nolan’s Dark knight trilogy was also distributed and owned by Warner Bros. since it has the origin story of Batman.
Warner Brothers Entertainment Studio:
The film studio division handled by Warner Bros is called Warner Bros Entertainment. This includes Warner Animation, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Films. A few of the films and franchises produced by Warner Bros include the Harry Potter franchise, Matrix series, Space Jam, Fantastic Beasts series, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Apart from these series, WB has also produced Nolan movies Tenet, Inception, Interstellar. This year’s release was the Venus Williams and Serena Williams biopic starring Will Smith in the lead role of King Richard.
Tweetie pie starring Tweetie and Sylvester had won an Academy Award in 1947. This was directed by Friz Freleng. For Scent-mental Reasons directed by Chuck Jones was also won the Academy award in 1949.
Logo Rebranding:
Once the rebranding was done they had revamped the previous 3-D logo with a more sleek design. They opted for a 2-D design that looked clean on screen. The color focused on the signature blue with a white background. The font got changed into something different. It got changed to sans serif font which also elevates the clean look when projected on the screen.
The logo designed by Pentagram gave a condensed look with not much width in the lettering. This logo consisting of WB on the signature water tower got revamped. We also got to see the characters owned by Warner Bros. popping out of the logo.
The logo also evolves with the theme but retains the basic shape. For example, in suicide squad, we can see the WB logo but with a splash of colors. The theme flipped through the logo became an attractive feature. A tactic considering that this simple-looking 2-D or 3-D logo can be evolved to complement the movie. The movie can also be identified by recognizing the logo.
Conclusion:
Warner Bros. is on its way to conquering the media world. Started as a minor studio in the USA, the story is nothing less inspirational. The company has been through countless rebranding and passed through different leaders who also tried to shape it. The true success of this company is how they have managed to play a part in everything relevant in the entertainment industry.
From producing films for amusement to movies that can garner critical acclaim, the ivory tower’s carefully calculated decisions in the works they generate. In this day and age, where streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon dominate, WarnerMedia HBO continues to play a vital role. HBO has always been relevant and this character to keep evolving with the change of tides is what will keep WarnerMedia a conglomerate in the entertainment industry.
FAQs:
Are any of the Warner family currently onboard?
No. As of today, there is no Warner family on board with the entertainment giant of the industry.
Who owns Adult Swim?
Adult Swim mostly known for its animated series Rick and Morty belongs to Cartoon Network, Inc. Cartoon Network, Inc. belongs to Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Does the Warner Bros. studio have a jungle?
Yes. The famous jungle where Jurassic Park was filmed belongs to Warner Bros. With the advancement of technology most of the studios shut down the sets consisting of jungle except for Warner Bros.
