Studios all claim bragging rights even when they are silly. A new movie that absolutely bombed in its first week and comes in 6th place behind 2 existing comedies, an animated film, a Rom-Com, Fast and Furious 17 and a Weinstein period drama, will have the trailers adjusted in the second week to say "Go see America's number 1 non-sequel Action film"
In Southern California, Paramount claims to be the oldest Film Producer in continuous production by a couple of months. I have never seen Universal dispute this. Universal's claim is that Universal City is the oldest Studio facility in continuous operation. Paramount Studios started in a place called the Jess Lasky (later Cecil B. DeMille) Barn that now sits across from the Hollywood Bowl, but was originally near Sunset and Vine. It is generally believed that barn is the "studio stage" where the first "Hollywood" feature was made. Paramount did not move into their current facilities until about 1926. It was adjacent to facilities used by Pathe/Orpheum/RKO (not sure of ownership stake at that time). Desilu later bought RKO and Paramount acquired Desilu later. So the current Paramount lot also includes the old Hollywood RKO stages and you can still sell the remnants of the RKO Globe at the Gower and Melrose corner of the Paramount lot. William Fox studios (before they merged with 20th) were in Hollywood at Western and Sunset Blvd. That place became a shopping mall when I was in High School. Fox had a huge ranch facility in what became Century City. In late 1929 that is where they started building the first of their soundstages for talkies and that location eventually became their principal location. The Hollywood facility and the Century City backlot were casualties of increased SoCal land value and the huge over-runs of Cleopatra. ----- Original Message ----- From: Bruce Hershenson To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 7:00 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] I found a significant mistake that a major studio made! Universal has a similar convoluted past. Carl Laemmle was originally just a film distributor but sometime in 1912 he made his first short movie, and he made tons of them in New Jersey over the next three years (but no features), and then moved to California in 1915 (when he opened Universal City, and it had tours for the public that year!). So depending on how you look at it, Universal pre-dates Paramount by 3 years. The third early giant was William Fox, and he started in 1915, but quickly had huge success. He was in the top rank of the studios in the 1920s, and in 1929 he had a firm deal to buy MGM, and the combined company would surely have been the number one studio, but the stock market crash wrecked the deal. He also made a terrible move in being the sole studio to continue producing major silent releases in 1929, and those two disasters ruined him personally. Bruce On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 8:44 AM, Dave Rosen <[email protected]> wrote: Ya know, bad math and typos aside, the fact that a movie studio has been around for 100 years (or ALMOST 100 years) is pretty impressive. Not that studios today are what they were then, but still. Is Paramount the oldest US studio, or is it Universal? Seems to me Universal's been around since 1912. Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: Bruce Hershenson To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 9:38 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] I found a significant mistake that a major studio made! Zeev It IS higher math, and my typo confused things more. They started as the "Paramount Program" which was separate studios releasing their product jointly, IN 1912. They didn't actually merge into a single real studio until 1915. So their true "100th Anniversary" isn't for 3 more years. But they wanted to celebrate NOW, so they made 2012 the 100th birthday, counting the three "Paramount Program" years. But in their press release, someone wrote that they didn't even use their famous logo until 1916, in print or onscreen, and that is what was wrong, and what I disproved! On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Zeev Drach <[email protected]> wrote: 1916, 1915, or 1914, the math still doesn’t work. 1915+75=1990. So what gives? Leonard Maltin talks about the 100th anniversary, but that still doesn’t work. 1915+100=2015! Am I misunderstanding the article or Bruce’s comment? Zeev From: MoPo List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bruce Hershenson Sent: December 23, 2011 7:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [MOPO] I found a significant mistake that a major studio made! Wow! I found a significant mistake that a major studio made! Paramount Pictures said that this year was the 75th anniversary of their famous logo, because it was first used in 1916. But I knew otherwise, and proved it was used as early as August, 1914, so they were off by two years. Read about it Leonard Maltin's fine site here: http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/paramount-logo-revisited -- Bruce Hershenson and the other 24 members of the eMoviePoster.com team P.O. Box 874 West Plains, MO 65775 Phone: 417-256-9616 (hours: Mon-Fri 9 to 5 except from 12 to 1 when we take lunch) our site our auctions Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. -- Bruce Hershenson and the other 24 members of the eMoviePoster.com team P.O. Box 874 West Plains, MO 65775 Phone: 417-256-9616 (hours: Mon-Fri 9 to 5 except from 12 to 1 when we take lunch) our site our auctions Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. -- Bruce Hershenson and the other 24 members of the eMoviePoster.com team P.O. Box 874 West Plains, MO 65775 Phone: 417-256-9616 (hours: Mon-Fri 9 to 5 except from 12 to 1 when we take lunch) our site our auctions Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
