Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures was founded on April 4, 1923 by Albert, Harry, Sam, and Jack Warner. It is a major film studio owned by Time Warner, a media corporation in New York City.

## 1937-1948

Fans of Warner Bros. films from the late 1930s and most of the 1940s will most likely see this logo before the movie. Examples of such films are *The Adventures of Robin Hood* (1938, which has the same variant from *The Private Lives* *Of Elizabeth And Excel*), *Sons Of Liberty* (1939), *Dodge* *City* (1939), *Yankee Doddle Dandy* (1942), *Casablanca* (1942), *The Big Sleep* (1946), *Night And Day* (1946), and *The Verdict* (1946). The latter 3 have the film's opening score playing over it while latter 4 have a majestic horn sounder composed by Max Steiner.

## 1948-1967

Fans of Warner Bros. films from the 1950s and 1960s will certainly see this logo before the movie. Films with this logo include *A Streetcar Named Desire* (1951), *East of Eden* (1955), *Around the World in 80 Days* (1956), *Fanny* (1961), and *My Fair Lady* (1964). The first film to use this logo was *Key Largo* (1948), and the last film to use it was *Cool Hand Luke* (1967 but copyrighted to Warner Bros.-Seven Arts as the merger had finished by the time the film was completed).

## 1967-1970

In November 1966, Seven Arts Productions merged together with Warner Bros., and the studio was renamed to Warner Bros.–Seven Arts.

Due to the fact that the Warner Bros. logos seen from September 28, 1967 to May 18, 1984 do not look much like the popular WB Shield logo, Warner Bros. tends to plaster these logos with a newer one. Therefore, this is the first of four logos to be considered rare. It's restored on current prints of *Bullitt* (1968), *The Wild Bunch* (1969), and *Dracula Has Risen From The Grave* (1969). It premiered on *The Bobo* (1967) and made its last appearance on *Chisum* (1970).

## 1970-1972

After Warner Bros.–Seven Arts became defunct in 1970, Kinney National Company bought Warner Bros.. However, this partnership lasted for no more than two years. The logo appeared on *A Clockwork Orange* (1971), but only up to the 2000 DVD print. Other than that, the logo is very rare to find. Some movies like *There Was A Crooked Man* (1970) and *THX-1138* (1970) had it on a black background. Others such as *The Omega Man* (1971) had it superimposed over the opening credits. *Dirty Harry* (1971) and *Billy Jack* (1971) do not have the "Presents" text. At the end of the film we see the print logo with "Distributed By Warner Bros." or "Distributed By Warner Bros. Inc." on top of or (in the case of "THX-1138") below it. Some movies like *Easy* *Pickens* (1970) and *Chisum* (1970) (the 1967 logo appears at the beginning) have no banner/byline on the superimposed version. It premiered on *Performance* released on August 7, 1970 and made its last appearance on *What's Up Doc?* released on March 12, 1972.

## 1972-1973

For at least 17 years, Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group became subsidiaries of Warner Communications. Only a few films had this logo, nearly all of them from 1972. *On What's Up Doc?* (1972), the logo is in gold on a book with a banner reading "Warner Bros. Pictures". "Presents" in script appears below the Warner Communications byline on *The* *Candidate* (1972). Of course, the logo does make its last appearance at the end of *Steelyard Blues* released on January 31, 1973 (the big W logo appears at the beginning).

## 1973-1984

This was the last Warner Bros. logo ever seen prior to the 1980s "Shield" logo. Examples of movies that had this logo are *The Exorcist* (1973) (presented austerely over a black background), *All the President's Men* (1976) (black and white), and the first three Superman films (1978-1983), but nowadays, when seen on DVD or Blu-ray, they most often use any of the newer logos below. It was first seen on *Steelyard Blues* (1973) and was last seen on *Irreconcilable* *Differences* (1984).

## 1984-2001

### 1984-1990

On June 8, 1984, when *Gremlins* (1984) premiered in theaters, it also marked the debut of the very popular WB Shield logo, with the old byline "A Warner Communications Company". It also included a majestic horn sounder (A classic WB fanfare) Other films with this logo include *The NeverEnding Story* (1984), *Purple Rain* (1984), *The* *Cannonball* *Run II* (1984), *Grandview, U.S.A.* (1984), *Windy City* (1984), *Cal* (1984), *The Killing Fields* (1984), *City Heat* (1984), *Tightrope* (1984), The Goonies (1985), *Ladyhawke* (1985), *Vision Quest* (1985), *Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome* (1985), *National Lampoon's European Vacation* (1985), *Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment* (1985), *Spies Like Us* (1985), *Better Off Dead* (1985), *Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer* (1985), *The Mission* (1986), *Police Academy 3: Back in Training* (1986), *Under the Cherry Moon* (1986), *Heartbreak Ridge* (1986), *Lethal Weapon* (1987), *Full* *Metal Jacket* (1987), *The Lost Boys* (1987), *Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol* (1987), *Burglar* (1987), *Superman IV: The Quest for Peace* (1987), *Frantic* (1988), *Tequila Sunri*s*e* (1988), *The Dead Pool* (1988), *Bird* (1988), *Funny Farm* (1988), *Caddyshack II* (1988), *Police Academy 5*: *Assignment* *Miami Beach*, *Batman* (1989), *Her Alibi* (1989), *Pink Cadillac* (1989), *Lethal Weapon 2* (1989), *In Country* (1989), *National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation* (1989), *Police Academy 6: Citizens Under Patrol* (1989), *Hard to Kill* (1990), *The Witches* (1990) and *White Hunter Black Heart* (1990). The logo made its first appearance on VHS in 1985.

Whenever *The Goonies* (and many other 1980s films) aired on any television network (NBC, off-network syndication, HBO, Cinemax, The Disney Channel, TBS, TNT, ABC Family, AMC, etc.), this logo was usually always seen at the beginning. At the end of *The Goonies* (1985 the DVD release), the 2000 Warner Bros. closing print logo from *Invictus* (2000) is seen.

### 1990-1993

After Warner Communications went defunct in 1990, Time Warner took over as the current owner of Warner Bros.. The new byline, written as "A Time Warner Company", was first seen on March 9, 1990, with *Joe Versus* *the Volcano* (1990). Other films that had this logo include *Goodfellas* (1990), *The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter* (1990), *Curly Sue* (1991), *JFK* (1991), *Final Analysis* (1992), *The Power of One* (1992), *Lethal Weapon 3* (1992), *Batman Returns* (1992), *Unforgiven* (1992), *Christopher Columbus: The Discovery* (1992) and *Falling Down* (1993).

### 1992-2001

In 1992, the byline was changed yet again to "A Time Warner Entertainment Company", which remained until 2001. The logo shown above was seen on films like *Stay Tuned* (1992), *Blade Runner: The Director's Cut* (1992), *Singles* (1992), *South Central* (1992), *Innocent Blood* (1992), *Under Siege* (1992), *Passenger 57* (1992), *Malcolm* *X* (1992), *The Bodyguard* (1992), *Forever Young* (1992), *Sommersby* (1993), Point of No Return (1993), *Boiling Point* (1993), *The Crush* (1993), *The* *Fugitive* (1993), *Demolition Man* (1993), *The Man Without A Face* (1993), *True Romance* (1993), *A Perfect World* (1993), *On Deadly Ground* (1994), *Chasers* (1994), *Police Academy*: *Mission to Moscow* (1994), *Nature Born Killers* (1994), *Batman Forever* (1995), *The Bridges of Madison County* (1995), *Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls* (1995), *Mars Attacks!* (1996), *Vegas Vacation* (1997), *Batman & Robin* (1997), *Contact* (1997), *Conspiracy Theory* (1997) and *L.A. Confidential* (1997) as well as *True Crime* (1999), *Deep Blue Sea* (1999), *Any Given Sunday* (1999), *Space Cowboys* (2000) and *The Exorcist: Extended Director's* Cut (2000). The film first appeared on VHS and Laserdisc in 1993. Both the last film with this logo, *The Postman*, and the first film with the next logo, *Fallen*, were released on VHS on October 13, 1998. Its first appearance was (as mentioned above) on *Gremlins* (1984) and made its last appearance at the end of *Valentine* (2001). You might be annoyed by how many times you've seen it. It's also been plastered onto the DVD of *National Lampoon's Vacation* (1983) though the big W logo is kept at the end. A closing logo features a superimposed WB shield without a banner and the owner byline at the bottom. On films from 1984 to 1990, it would use the big W logo. On some films from 1985 to 1990 like *The Witches Of Eastwick*, *Above The Law*, *Caddyshack 2*, *Lethal Weapon* 2, *National* *Lampoon's Christmas Vacation* and *Driving Miss Daisy*, the credit logo used the previous logo's font with a WB shield, A variation of it is seen at the end of *The Bonfire Of The Vanities* with the WB shield and below that "DISTRIBUTED BY WARNER BROS., A TIME WARNER COMPANY". Another ending variation features the movie logo but modified with "Distributed By Warner Bros." above the shield. This was also used for the beginning of *Freejack*. Another one shows only "Distributed By" and the Warner Bros. Pictures text is redone but some releases like *Get Carter* and *Miss Congeniality* have the banner reading simply "Warner Bros." Also Added is the URL, www.warnerbros.com below the owner disclaimer.

All of the Warner Bros. logos from before 1998 do not have any original music while others had music playing over it.

## 1998-2022

The currently-still-in-use Warner Bros. logo debuted on January 16, 1998 with Fallen (1998). For its first year, the logo had the words "75 Years Entertaining the World", and the studio was still a Time Warner Entertainment company, even after the "75 Years" variant ended in 1999. Then in 2000, AOL and Time Warner merged together, and beginning in February 2001, the Warner Bros. logo's byline changed to "An AOL Time Warner Company". After that, in 2003, when AOL broke up with Warner Bros., the byline changed back to "A Time Warner Company", then to "A TimeWarner Company" with the word "TimeWarner" in its own logo font as of early 2004.

The ending variations since 2001 features the 1984 shield with "Distributed By' on top and the URL below the owner disclamer. It doesn't count as the 1984 logo since it was only a modified version of the 2001 Warner Bros. Television logo.

*Superman Returns* (2006) was the company's first film presented in 3D. Three Harry Potter films from 2007-2011 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was not any of them) were also presented in 3D.

After AT&T acquired TimeWarner, the byline once again changed to "A WARNERMEDIA Company", first seen on films released since July 21, 2018, including Smallfoot (2018).

## 2020-Present

After Warner Bros. Entertainment revealed a new logo on November 13, 2019, Warner Bros. Pictures also refreshed its image to match with the modern look of the new shield and dropped the banner and "Warner Bros. Pictures" is below the shield. It debuted on the final trailer of Tenet (2020) and was given a proper animation to accompany it in 2021, which first appeared on the HBO Max original movie, Locked Down.

After WarnerMedia went defunct in 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery took over as the current owner of Warner Bros.. The new byline, written as "A WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY COMPANY", was first seen on June 24, 2022, with *Elvis*(2022).