Film studio

A film studio is a controlled environment for the making of a film. This environment may be interior (sound stage), exterior (backlot), or both. "Big Five" and Mini-major film studios including Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Columbia Pictures. 
List of popular culture best many adventures (real-life) universe perhaps respectively genre characters introduced The Three Musketeers (behind after apart since The Three Stooges), Laurel and Hardy (behind after apart since Superman and Batman), Mickey Mouse (behind after apart since Popeye), Blondie and Dagwood (behind after apart since Ren and Stimpy), Snow White (behind after apart since Bugs Bunny), Abbott and Costello (behind after apart since Toy Story including Woody and Buzz Lightyear), Wonder Woman (behind after apart since Noddy, Astro Boy and Mega Man), Cinderella (behind after apart since Barbie), Beetle Bailey (behind after apart since Hogan's Heroes), Kermit the Frog (behind after apart since Darth Vader), The Flintstones (behind after apart since The Simpsons), Maya the Bee (behind after apart since The Little Mermaid including Ariel and Nickelodeon television series SpongeBob SquarePants), Back to the Future including Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown (behind after apart since Rick and Morty), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (behind after apart since Teletubbies) and Super Mario Bros. (behind after apart since Sonic the Hedgehog).
Disney, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox all classic star characters including Mickey Mouse universe, Donald Duck universe, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and The Simpsons. 
Disney, Marvel and Warner Bros., DC other characters such as Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, Marvel superheroes, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks, Jim Henson, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Leon Schlesinger, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Hal Roach, McDonald's, Stephen Hillenburg, Larry Harmon, Nick Park and George Lucas creator founders of Disney, The Jim Henson Company, The Muppets Studio, Hanna-Barbera, Dr. Seuss, Hal Roach Studios, Larry Harmon Pictures, Nickelodeon, McDonald's, Comedy Central, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Aardman, Warner Bros and Lucasfilm's the most iconic domain production perhaps featured respectively characters to life: Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Tinker Bell, Laurel and Hardy, Ronald McDonald, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bozo the Clown, Kermit the Frog, Fred Flintstone, Tom and Jerry, Droopy, Red, Wolf, The Cat in the Hat, South Park, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wallace and Gromit, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Darth Vader.
The Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks, Chuck Jones, Matt Groening, Leon Schlesinger and Tex Avery other classic Disney, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox creators well known for Mickey Mouse universe, Donald Duck universe, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and The Simpsons well known respectively cartoon characters introduced to life: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Homer Simpson, Marge Simpson, Bart Simpson, Lisa Simpson and Maggie Simpson.
Started since the 1920s-present publishers and companies, respectively, Disney, Pixar, Warner Bros., DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Aardman, MGM and Hanna-Barbera the respectively perhaps well known comics, stop-motion animated, computer-animated and animated cartoon characters to life: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, Tex Avery, Toy Story, Wallace and Gromit Superman, Batman and Spider-Man.
The well known perhaps respectively were essential featured classic all star studios characters including Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pixar's Toy Story, Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, MGM, Turner Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera's Tom and Jerry, Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones, MGM's Droopy, Wolf and Red, DC's Superman and Batman, Marvel's Spider-Man, Aardman's Wallace and Gromit, Jay Ward's Rocky and Bullwinkle, Lucasfilm's Star Wars, Jim Henson's The Muppets, 20th Century Fox's Marilyn Monroe, DreamWorks' Shrek, Nickelodeon characters and Cartoon Network characters.
===Studio===
All studios
* The Walt Disney Company:
* Film: TV production and film production Walt Disney Studios; Touchstone Films, Miramax Films, Hollywood Pictures, Buena Vista Filmed Entertainment, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Buena Vista International, Pixar, and a partnership with DreamWorks, library of more than other films, TV programs, and thousands of animated shows (such as Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins, The Lion King, Toy Story and other titles)
* Broadcast television: 10 TV stations; ABC Television Network
* Cable: ESPN, Fox Family, Toon Disney, and Disney Channel; also holdings in Lifetime, A&E, History Channel, and Biography
* Radio: 59 radio stations; ABC Radio Network
* Magazines: Discover, Los Angeles Magazine
* Books: Hyperion books, ESPN Books, Disney Publishing Worldwide
* Recordings: Walt Disney Records, Buena Vista Records, Hollywood Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, Wonderland Music Company
* Sports: Anaheim Angels (baseball); Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (hockey)
* Other: 11 theme parks; Marvel Comics (5,000 characters, including, Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four and other Marvel superheroes and supervillains); Lucasfilm (Star Wars (including Darth Vader and other character titles) and Indiana Jones); consumer products; The Disney Store; cruise line, petroleum, and natural gas production interests.
* Time Warner:
* Founded 1990; home office in New York City; 86,400 employees
* Broadcast television: CW network; Kids' WB!
* Cable: Time Warner Cable (11 million subscribers); 9 local news cable channels; Turner Broadcasting System (CNN, Headline News, TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network)
* Film: TV production and film production Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, Fine Line Features, New Line Television, Castle Rock Entertainment, and Telepictures Productions); library of more than 6,000 films, 25,000 TV programs, and thousands of animated shows (such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Winsome Witch, Penelope Pitstop, Captain Caveman, Yogi Bear, Hanna-Barbera and Tom and Jerry); Warner Brothers International Cinemas (123 screens in the United States and 650 screens in other countries)
* Recordings: Warner Brothers Music Group, Atlantic, Elektra, and numerous smaller labels 
* Magazines: largest publisher of magazines in the United States, with over 140 magazines reaching more than 300 million people worldwide, including Time, Life, People, Fortune, Money, Mad magazine, Sports Illustrated Entertainment Weekly, In Style, Sunset, Parenting, Southern Living, and Teen People
* Internet: America Online (30 million subscribers); CompuServe; McAfee Virus, Scan, Mapquest, Netscape, Winamp 
* Newspapers: 7 dailies
* Books: Little, Brown; Book of the Month Club; DC Comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Mad magazine and 60 other titles)
* New media: AOL, with its 20 million Internet subscribers
* Sports: Atlanta Braves (baseball), Atlanta Hawks (basketball), Atlanta Thrashers (hockey)
* Other: Warner Brothers Studio Stores (more than 150 worldwide); MovieFone
* Was bought by AOL in 2000 for $164 billion; in 2009, AOL was spun off into a separate company, which is owned by Time Warner.
Film studios major characters:
The producers executives, the shift to composer animation still required that a movie's characters had to resonate with consumers, both children and their parents. Toward the end of the 1990s, retailers and licensees maintained their cautions stand with respect to which movies to support. The result was many programs that potentially seemed to be winners, but never got off the ground. In animation, Antz (DreamWorks) and A Bug's Life (Pixar) disappointed in the consumer products arena, but Monsters, Inc. (Pixar) and Shrek (DreamWorks) were highly successful. At the turn of the century, when, blockbuster franchises including Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Toy Story, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and The Flintstones. But now, DC and Marvel franchises Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and X-Men revived the super hero, this was a turning point, reigniting retail and licensee faith in the process. However, the downside of increased high-profile action titles in the consumer products world led to over-saturation. Today, all studios work hard to secure shelf space for their movie tie-in products. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough to go around. With 16 to 18 animated or super hero movies per year, less famous (and even some high-profile) titles get squeezed out of retail. While the virtual shelves of online sales pick up some of the slack, it is increasingly challenging for studio executives and independent licensing agents to pursue licensing deals. What used to be known as "licensing and merchandising" departments have given way to "consumer products" divisions. The two studios that lead the way are Disney, with their unrivaled, evergreen properties including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto, Classic all star starring Winnie the Pooh, Disney princesses characters including Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel and others, Starring one human character Mary Poppins, plus all the lucrative product from Pixar including Woody and Buzz Lightyear, Marvel line of super heroes including Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, X-Men, Fantastic Four and other Marvel superheroes and supervillains and Lucasfilm starring Star Wars including Darth Vader, and Indiana Jones, and Warner Bros. with their Looney Tunes characters such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, their DC Comics line of super heroes including Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, and the Harry Potter franchise, providing an ongoing revenue stream that can support a large staff. Other studios don't have the luxury of such a stable of characters, so they work to create new licensing opportunities with carefully selected movies and television series from their development and production pipelines. The term "franchise" has become a licensing buzzword, referring to ongoing licensing potential over a series of movies. Live-action examples are Warner Bros.' Harry Potter series; New Line's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series; Twilight and Hunger Games series from Lionsgate; and Marvel and DC television series and movies is a DC and Marvel superheroes including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man and X-Men. Animated examples are Shrek, Monsters, Inc. and Despicable Me. The key to any franchise is its long-term merchandising potential and its appeal to more than one generation. However, gross merchandising revenues tend to decline as the number of films in the series increases. The success of the first title studio from Disney, Warner Bros., DC, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox characters including to life: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Darth Vader and Simpsons family.
==Disambiguation==
In casual usage, the term has become confused with production company, due largely to the fact that the major production companies of Hollywood's "Golden Age"—stretching from the late 1920s to the late 1940s—owned their own studio subsidiaries, as a few continue to do. However, worldwide (and even in the United States) the majority of production companies have never owned their own studios but have had to rent space at independently owned facilities that, in many cases, never produce a film of their own.
==History==
In 1893, Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the United States when he constructed the Black Maria, a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey, and asked circus, vaudeville, and dramatic actors to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds. Other studio operations followed in New Jersey, New York City, and Chicago.
In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California, because of the good weather and longer days. Although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in downtown Los Angeles. Early movie producers also relocated to Southern California to escape Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. The distance from New Jersey made it more difficult for Edison to enforce his patents.
The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley. In the same year, another fifteen independents settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in places such as Culver City, Burbank, and what would soon become known as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley.
By the mid-1920s, the evolution of a handful of American production companies into wealthy film industry conglomerates that owned their own studios, distribution divisions, and theaters, and contracted with performers and other filmmaking personnel, led to the sometimes confusing equation of "studio" with "production company" in industry slang. Five large companies, 20th Century-Fox, MGM, Paramount, RKO, and Warner Bros., came to be known as the "Big Five," the "majors," or "the Studios" in trade publications such as Variety, and their management structures and practices collectively came to be known as the "studio system." Although they owned few or no theaters to guarantee sales of their films, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists also fell under these rubrics, making a total of eight generally recognized "major studios"; United Artists, though its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios during the Golden Age, had an often tenuous hold on the title of "major" and operated mainly as a backer and distributor of independently produced films.
The Big Five's ownership of theaters was eventually opposed by eight independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Walt Disney, and Walter Wanger, and in 1948 the federal government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court, which ruled that the vertically integrated structure of the company constituted an illegal monopoly. This decision hastened the end of the studio system and Hollywood's Golden Age.
Midway through the 1950s, with television proving to be a profitable enterprise not destined to disappear any time soon (as many in the film industry had once hoped), movie studios were increasingly being used to produce programming for the burgeoning medium. Some midsized film companies, such as Republic Pictures, eventually sold their studios to TV production concerns. With the breakup of domination by "the Studios" and the continued incursion of television into the cinematic audience, the major production companies gradually transformed into management structures that simply put together artistic teams on a project-by-project basis and made what studio spaces they retained available for rental, which remains the normal today.
==Big Five and Mini-major==
* Disney - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Toy Story and other Disney and Pixar characters
** Marvel Comics - Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy
** Lucasfilm - Star Wars and Indiana Jones
** 20th Century Studios - Marilyn Monroe and other Fox corporation company genre appearing TV, cartoons and movies characters
** National Geographic - Animals and nature
* Warner Bros. - Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and Warner Bros characters
** DC Comics - Superman, Batman, Justice League, Justice Society, Young Justice, L.E.G.I.O.N., Legion of Super-Heroes and Teen Titans
** Hanna-Barbera - Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and other Hanna-Barbera characters
** Cartoon Network
* Universal Pictures - Despicable Me, Jurassic Park, Frankenstein, Dracula, Universal Classic Monsters and other titles
* Paramount Pictures - Star Trek, SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr and much, much more
* Columbia Pictures
* Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - The Wizard of Oz, The Pink Panther and much, much more
==Some early movie studios==
*Babelsberg Studios (Germany)
*Barrandov Studios (Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic])
*Biograph Studios (USA)
*Champion Film Company (USA)
*Christie Film Company (USA)
*Edison's Black Maria (USA)
*Edison Studios (USA)
*Famous Players Film Company (USA)
*Fox Film Corporation (USA)
*Gaumont Pictures (France)
*Méliès Films (France)
*Mosfilm (Soviet Union [now Russia])
*Mutual Film Corporation (USA)
*Goldwyn Picture Corporation (USA)
*Kalem Company (USA)
*Keystone Studios (USA)
*Lone Star Film Company (USA)
*Lubin Studios (USA)
*Nelson Entertainment (USA)
*Nestor Studios (USA)
*New York Motion Picture Company (USA)
*Nordisk Film (Denmark)
*Pathé Frères (France)
*Pinewood Studios (England)
*Premium Picture Productions (USA)
*Selig Polyscope Company (USA)
*Solax Studios (USA)
*Southall Studios (England)
*Thanhouser Company (USA)
*Triangle Film Corporation (USA)
*Yankee Film Company (USA)
*Victor Studios (USA)
*The Vitagraph Company (USA)
*World Pictures Corporation (USA)
==See also==
*Major film studios
*Film release
*Cinema
*History of cinema
*List of cities containing film studios
==Sources==
*PBS Frontline, "the monster that ate hollywood"