An advertisement for The Famous Players Lasky Corporation, created in 1916 by the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.

Paramount Pictures evolved from the merger of two production companies that then took control of their distributor to create the most powerful studio of its day.

On May 8, 1912, the twists and turns began when Adolph Zukor founded Famous Players in Famous Plays. Zukor had emigrated to New York as a 16-year-old orphan from Hungary and became wealthy in the fur business. Fate intervened in 1903 when a cousin asked to borrow $3,000 for an arcade partnership. Zukor agreed and opened his own arcade, which did big business with peep show machines running short films.

Zukor then moved into the fledgling movie business, thinking people would lose interest in movie clips and would then embrace feature films. When Zukor learned who held the U.S. rights to the French feature QUEEN ELIZABETH, starring legendary stage actress Sarah Bernhardt, he immediately licensed it for $35,000.

He premiered QUEEN ELIZABETH in July 1912 at NY’s Lyceum, a legitimate stage theatre. It was a major entertainment event that put Famous Players on the map. He was absolutely right about longer movies resonating with audiences.

Meanwhile, in 1913 movie pioneer Jesse Lasky in partnership with a new director (Cecil B. DeMille), an experienced director (Oscar Apfel), and a tough businessman (Sam Goldfish – later Goldwyn) formed The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co. Its first production, THE SQUAW MAN, was the first feature film in Hollywood and was a big hit in theatres.

Zukor & Lasky’s movies were released through Paramount Pictures, the first U.S. national distributor. Utah theatre owner W.W. Hodkinson formed Paramount on May 8, 1914 — two years to the day after Zukor had started Famous Players. When the ambitious Zukor realized he and Lasky were making most of Paramount’s films, he saw how to take over the company and get the power base he craved.

After secretly assembling a large block of Paramount stock, at the June 13, 1916 shareholders meeting, Zukor ousted Hodkinson by nominating distributor Hiram Abrams for president and voting his own shares to elect him. Zukor and Lasky merged their companies on June 28, 1916, to form Famous Players-Lasky, valued then at a substantial $12.5M.

Zukor soon was president of the Paramount Famous Lasky Corp., which now distributed and made films. Under Zukor, Paramount built a theatre circuit with nearly 2,000 screens and dominated Hollywood for decades. Zukor, who ruled his empire from Paramount’s Times Square headquarters, was chairman emeritus when he died June 10, 1976, at 103.

“It occurred to me that if we could take a novel or a play and put it on the screen, the people would be interested. We should get not only the casual passers-by but people leaving their homes, going out in search of amusement.” – Adolph Zukor

L.A. moviegoers are mourning Landmark’s announcement that it will close its iconic theatre on Pico Boulevard at the end of the month.  The Landmark Pico opened in 2007 as a 12-screen, multi-story theatre, and over the past 15 years, it has hosted numerous L.A. premieres and industry screenings and sold millions of movie tickets.  The company cited as the reason for the closure its inability to reach an acceptable agreement to extend its lease with the building owner.

After last year’s much-publicized closures of the Pacific Theatres and Arclight Cinemas chains, Landmark’s Pico location stood as one of Los Angeles’ last art house multiplexes.  Pico’s struggle to continue operating is emblematic of a nationwide trend among art houses, with an ever-increasing share of the box office from blockbuster titles driven by big-screen special effects.

See also: Landmark Pico Theater’s Closure Mourned by Indie Film Lovers in L.A.: ‘All the Swear Words. Just All of Them’ (The Wrap)

With only 52 weekends in a year, you’d think Hollywood would stop wasting them.

But that’s exactly what we saw this weekend when only a modest horror remake, FIRESTARTER (pictured), went after a slice of boxoffice pie in the MULTIVERSE shadows. Studios used such weekends pre-pandemic to counter-program with specialized films for moviegoers who aren’t into superheroes.

These wide-open weekends typically follow tentpoles’ success, and multiplexes could benefit from filling them with alternative films for adults. The best source for such movies would be streamers like Netflix & HBO Max, which always have the high-quality products they could debut with one or two-week domestic theatrical runs.

A new Mini-Theatrical Window would benefit both exhibs & streamers. Exhibs would fill seats that would otherwise be empty, providing new revenue to share with streamers, which can use it these days. Those moviegoers, of course, would also spend money on concessions, a key profit center for exhibs. MTW releases could be done with custom ticket pricing and no reporting of grosses.

Streamers would also benefit from the marketing & publicity their MTW releases received, enhancing their value because reviews & word-of-mouth heighten subscriber awareness — a much-needed win-win for all!

DOCTOR STRANGE continues to drive the global box office, grossing over $650M worldwide in its first 10 days.  Even with this success, this latest Marvel blockbuster presents questions for both studios and exhibitors.  Disney is finding it increasingly difficult to secure release slots in China for its major titles on the studio side.

During a Q&A session after presenting its most recent quarterly results, Disney’s Bob Chapek addressed the China topic directly, saying that he was bullish about the outlook for solid returns from the studio’s major releases even without access to the Chinese market.  This was the first time Chapek has acknowledged publicly that the world’s largest studio can no longer count on China as a partner in its releases.

As for exhibitors, some are fretting over the increasing reliance on studio tentpoles for box office receipts.  For example, Variety reported last week that the AMC Empire 25 in New York programmed a full 60 showtimes of DOCTOR STRANGE in a single day.  While the short-term revenue bump is appreciated, reliance on these blockbusters comes with risk, should studios be inconsistent in pumping out a steady stream of mega-releases.

See also: Disney CEO Bob Chapek On The “Difficulty” Of Getting Films Released In China (Deadline)