FOUNDED: 1918
TWO-SENTENCE HISTORY: Arguably Hollywood’s first “indie” studio, Warner’s first breakout star walked on four legs: Rin Tin Tin, a German Shephard brought back to the U.S. from the battlefields of WWI, was a huge box-office draw and, for a while, earned a then-astonishing $1,000 a week. Famous for such socially relevant titles like 1932’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Warner had its share of triumphs and near-death experiences—in 1989, it (as part of Warner Communications) merged with publishing giant Time Inc. (Both Warner Bros. and TIME are part of Time Warner.)
MEMORABLE FILMS INCLUDE: Casablanca (1942), A Star is Born (1954), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), All the President’s Men (1976) and the Harry Potter movies (2001-2011)
THE LOGO: The first Warner Bros. logo was seen in 1923, and featured the letters ‘WB’ on the bottom half of a shield. It wasn’t until 1937 that audiences saw some semblance of the logo we know today: the WB filling the shield, which itself floats in front of a cloud-filled sky. (For a 12-year period between 1972 and 1984, the shield was dropped altogether.) Starting in 1999, some logos use an 8-chord tune that turns into a fully orchestrated snippet from Casablanca’s much-loved “As Time Goes By”
VERSIONS: Click here to see a sampling of logos used from 1940 to today, and here to see how it was used at the beginning of The Matrix.
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