# Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation| Logo used since 1967 |
| The Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles. On September 17, 2006, the company moved there. |
| Trade name | Paramount Pictures |
| Formerly | * Famous Players Film Company (1912–1916)
* Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (1916–1927)
* Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation (1927–1930)
* Paramount Publix Corporation (1930–1935)
* Paramount Pictures Inc. (1935–1950)
 |
| Company type | Division |
| Industry | Movies |
| Predecessors | * Famous Players Film Company
* Famous Players-Lasky Corporation
* Republic Pictures
 |
| Founded | May 8, 1912 (1912-05-08) |
| Founders | * William Wadsworth Hodkinson
* Adolph Zukor
* Jesse L. Lasky
 |
| Headquarters | 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Brian Robbins (Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Parent | * Gulf+Western (1966–1989)
* Paramount Communications (1989–1994)
* Viacom (first and second incarnations) (1994–2019)
* Paramount Global (2019–2025)
* Paramount Skydance Corporation (2025–present)
 |
| Divisions | * Nickelodeon Movies
* Paramount Home Entertainment
* Paramount Players
* Paramount Animation
* Paramount Television Studios
* Paramount Music
* Skydance Animation

Nickelodeon Group |
| Subsidiaries | * DreamWorks Pictures
* Miramax (49%)
* United International Pictures (50%)
* Republic Pictures
 |
| Website | paramountpictures.com |

**Paramount Pictures** is an American film production and distribution company. It is the oldest movie studio in the United States. It has been in existence since 1912. Paramount is owned by media conglomerate Paramount Skydance. Paramount is one of the Big Five movie studios.

## History

Paramount Pictures Inc. can trace its beginnings to the creation in May, 1912 of the Famous Players Film Company. Organized in 1914 by a Utah theater owner, W. W. Hodkinson, Paramount Pictures was the first successful nationwide distributor. Until this time, movies were sold on a statewide or regional basis. This was inefficient and costly to producers.

In 1916, Adolph Zukor created a three-way merger of his Famous Players Film Company, Jesse L. Lasky's Lasky Feature Play Company, and Paramount. The new company was called Famous Players-Lasky and grew quickly. Lasky ran the production side. Hiram Abrams was in charge of distribution and Zukor handled the business side of the company.

In 1927, Famous Players-Lasky took on the name Paramount-Famous Lasky Corporation. Three years later, because of the importance of the Publix theatre chain, it was later known as Paramount-Publix Corporation. The company went into bankruptcy in 1933. When the company emerged from bankruptcy, it was known as Paramount Pictures, Inc.

Paramount Pictures had been an early supporter of television. It created stations in 1939 in Los Angeles (later to become KTLA) and Chicago's WBKB.

The artist Dario Campanile standing in front of the artwork he created for Paramount Studios for their 75th Anniversary logo-redesign. The painting was used as the source for later logo animation. The original is on display at Paramount Studios.
Paramount's successful run of lightweight pictures in the 1980s and 1990s created hits like *Flashdance* (1983), the *Friday the 13th* (1980) series; *Raiders of the Lost Ark* (1981), *Beverly Hills Cop* (1984) and the *Star Trek* (1979) features.

In 1993, entertainment conglomerate Viacom bought Paramount.

Paramount is the last major movie studio located in Hollywood. Other studios such as Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures moved to other neighbourhoods in Los Angeles.

On December 11, 2005, Paramount said it had purchased DreamWorks SKG in a deal worth $1.6 billion. On February 1, 2006, the studio announced that the DreamWorks acquisition was completed.

In March 2010, Paramount started Insurge Pictures, a low-budget label. In 2019, Paramount bought 49 percent of Miramax Films.

## List of movies

## Movie studios

* DreamWorks Pictures (1996-present; live-action and animated movies)
* Nickelodeon Movies (1998-present)
* Miramax Films (2019-present)

## Other websites

* Official website
* Paramount Pictures on IMDB.com
* Insurge Pictures Archived 2013-08-15 at the Wayback Machine