The six major Hollywood studios, circa 2007

Universal Owned by NBC Universal, formerly MCA/Universal, owned in part byGE and Vivendi, previously owned by Seagram beverages (Canadian).NBC Universal also owns NBC television network, cable networks(SciFi, USA, Bravo, Telemundo), Universal Music Group (KanyeWest, U2, Ludacris, The Who, Keane), Universal theme parks.

Well-known Universal Studios pictures include The Sting, To Kill aMockingbird, American Graffiti, Jaws, The Deer Hunter, the Halloween horrorfranchise, most John Hughes films (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club,etc.), and Scarface. Recent films include The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Jarhead,and Miami Vice.

Divisions include Focus Features (formerly USA Films, mergedtogether with what were formerly October Films, Gramercy, others)produces and distributes American art-house films, e.g., BrokebackMountain, Gosford Park, Lost in Translation, and produces/distributesforeign films of all types, e.g., Swimming Pool, Monsoon Wedding, Shaun ofthe Dead.

Universal distributes its own pictures and sometimes co-finances anddistributes films with these production companies:

• Imagine Entertainment: founded by Brian Grazer & Ron Howard;responsible for Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind, TV shows like 24

• Amblin Entertainment: founded by Stephen Spielberg and others,produced E.T. and Schindler’s List; also produced Back to the Futuretrilogy, Men in Black, Monster House.

• Morgan Creek: finances its own production and marketing for filmslike Ace Ventura, Major League, True Romance, Man of the Year.

• Working Title Films: a British production company co-owned byUniversal and BBC Films; produces all the Coen Bros. films (Fargo,The Big Lebowski, etc.) plus British-scripted hits like Four Weddings anda Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and films by British directors likeUnited 93.

• Studio Canal: a French production company which sometimes co-produces with Working Title; produced or co-produced British andEuropean films including Billy Elliot, and occasionally invests in theproduction of art-house American features like The Pianist andMulholland Drive.

Disney Owned by Walt Disney CorporationThe Disney Corporation also owns Disney theme parks, TV networks(ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel, History Channel, A&E, Lifetime, etc.),radio stations, music labels (Hollywood Records, Mammoth, others),book publishers (Hyperion), Broadway stage production companies(The Lion King), consumer products (Disney Stores), a video gamescompany (Buena Vista games), and the Muppets/Jim HensonProductions. Disney formerly owned the Anaheim Angels and NHL’sMighty Ducks (a franchise originally created by Disney after thesuccess of its Mighty Ducks film)

Disney divisions include:

• Walt Disney Pictures: kids’ movies, including traditional Disneyanimation, e.g., Snow White, Bambi, Fantasia, The Little Mermaid,Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, as well as G-rated and PG-rated live-action features like Freaky Friday, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and thePirates of the Caribbean franchise (the only PG-13 rated Disney studiofilms)

• Touchstone Pictures: “adult” movies: Hitchhiker’s Guide, The RoyalTenenbaums and other Wes Anderson films

• Hollywood Pictures (produced The Sixth Sense) and now mostlydefunct

• Miramax Films (formerly owned by the Weinstein Brothers withDisney) responsible for art-house films and foreign film distribution

• Pixar: new-wave animation, e.g. Cars, Monster Inc.

Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures, a division of the larger Disneycorporation, Disney is also affiliated with and distributes many featuresby Spyglass Entertainment (a production company) produced inconjunction with Disney divisions.

Paramount Owned by ViacomViacom also owns TV networks (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET,Comedy Central, CW network, etc.) record company Famous Music(Shakira, Eminem), Internet ventures (iFilm), video game companies(Xfire), Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. chain restaurants (a spin-off of theForrest Gump film)

The oldest studio still in existence, Paramount is the producer of suchclassics as Sunset Boulevard and Shane, many Hitchcock films, Chinatown,The Godfather films, Saturday Night Fever, and the Star Trek and IndianaJones franchises. Films from the last decade range from World TradeCenter to Vanilla Sky to Clueless.

Divisions include Paramount Vantage (formerly Paramount Classics)responsible for art-house productions like The Virgin Suicides, Babel,Hustle and Flow, An Inconvenient Truth.

Paramount is its own distributor, and they distribute MTV Films andNickelodeon Films, among others.

As of 2006, the newest division of Paramount is Dreamworks, foundedby Stephen Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, andresponsible for many of Spielberg’s recent hits (Minority Report, Munich)as well as major pictures like Almost Famous, American Beauty, Cast Away,The Ring, Anchorman, Collateral, Seabiscuit, and Meet the Parents, but notthe Dreamworks animation division which produces movies like Shrek,and which is its own company.

Warner Bros Owned by Time Warner Inc.Time Warner Inc. also owns two other production studios (Castle Rock andNew Line Cinema), Time Warner book publishing (Warner Books, LittleBrown), magazines like Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Money, and Fortune, HBO,the WB network now CW network, cable networks including CNN, HeadlineNews, Cartoon Network, all the Turner channels (TBS, TNT, Turner MovieClassics), AOL, Netscape, Advertising.com, Time Warner cable company (theones who install your home cable), the Atlanta Braves, DC Comics

Warner Brothers is one of the oldest Hollywood studios, producer ofCasablanca, Rebel Without a Cause, and Mean Streets to name just a few ofthousands of classics. More recent films include the Harry Potter, Matrix, andTerminator franchises, all the old and new Superman films, V for Vendetta, TheDeparted, and Blood Diamond.

WB distributes its own movies and films by Time Warner Co.’s other filmstudios:• New Line Cinema: producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Austin

Powers movies, and films ranging from Pleasantville to Nightmare on ElmStreet. New Line also has a subdivision formerly known as Fine LineFeatures (now known as Picturehouse since it merged with HBO Films)that produces independent films like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shine.

• Castle Rock Entertainment, co-founded in part by Rob Reiner (director ofWhen Harry Met Sally, Stand by Me, etc.); has produced movies like TheShawshank Redemption, A Few Good Men, The Polar Express, and all of theChristopher Guest “mockumentaries” like This is Spinal Tap, Waiting forGuffman, A Mighty Wind.

Sony Sony Pictures Entertainment is mainly the classic Hollywood studio formerlyknown as Columbia. Sony purchased Columbia from Coca-Cola, which ownedthe studio for a short period in the 1980s, before which Columbia wasindependent. Coca-Cola created TriStar Pictures, a joint venture with CBS andHBO. Sony Pictures also acquired the classic MGM studios in 2005 in apartnership with Comcast and others. MGM includes United Artists, OrionPictures, and Samuel Goldwyn Pictures.

Sony is a multinational holding corporation based in Japan with four othermajor divisions: Electronics, Computer Entertainment (Video Games),Sony/BMG Music, and financial services.

Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group includes the following divisions:• Columbia Pictures: the original studio founded in 1924, famous for classics

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, On the Waterfront, Easy Rider, and Taxi Driveramong thousands of others. More recent films include Groundhog Day, andthe Spider-Man and Charlie’s Angels movies.

• TriStar Pictures: major pictures like in the 1980s and 1990s like JerryMaguire and Philadelphia. Now reorganized to work more on “genre” films(likely other than horror which are made by Screen Gems)

• Sony Pictures Classics: independent and art-house films like House of FlyingDaggers, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Pedro Almodovar films likeVolver and Bad Education

• Screen Gems: mostly horror films (Hostel, Resident Evil, The Grudge)• Triumph Films: often low-budget or direct-to-video films• Destination Films: a small “niche” distribution company (Cowboy BeBop)

Sony distributes its own films and has distribution deals with MGM/UA andnow Revolution Films, an independent production studio affiliated with Sony.Revolution has made films ranging from Black Hawk Down to Punch-Drunk Loveto XXX to Rent.

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Fox 20th Century Fox was founded as Fox studios in 1915 and merged with 20thCentury Pictures in 1935. Since 1984, it has been owned outright by the NewsCorporation (media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s company), a mammoth mediaconglomerate whose holdings include HarperCollins book publishing,hundreds of newspapers in the US, UK, and internationally, magazinesincluding TV Guide, the Fox TV network and affiliated cable stations (FX, FoxSports, Fox News Channel), DirectTV satellite service, Fox television studios(owner of The Simpsons and countless other shows), hundreds of local Foxtelevision affiliates, Internet ventures like MySpace, and sports teams like theColorado Rockies (they formerly owned the Manchester United soccer team,the Yankees of English league soccer).

20th Century Fox historically is famous for countless classics like All About Eve,Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, MASH, Patton, and are co-producers of theStar Wars franchise. Recent films include Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, and Walkthe Line.

Fox divisions include:• Fox Searchlight, which focuses on art-house and “independent” films like

The Full Monty, The Ice Storm, Quills, Bend it Like Beckham, Sideways, Little MissSunshine.

• Blue Sky Studios, an animation production firm, notably producing the IceAge movies.

Fox also has distribution deals and part-ownership with Regency studios (Mr.and Mrs. Smith, Date Movie)