32 Facts About Universal Studios

Universal Studios Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association, and was one of the "Little Three" majors during Hollywood's golden age.

Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H Cochrane and Jules Brulatour.

Universal Studios was established on June 8, 1912, formed in a merger of Independent Moving Pictures, the Powers Motion Picture Company, Rex Motion Picture Manufacturing Company, Champion Film Company, Nestor Film Company, and the New York Motion Picture Company.

The new Universal Studios studio was a vertically integrated company, with movie production, distribution, and exhibition venues all linked in the same corporate entity, the central element of the Studio system era.

Universal Studios became the largest studio in Hollywood and remained so for a decade.

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In 1916, Universal Studios formed a three-tier branding system for their releases.

Universal Studios financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt.

In 1926, Universal Studios opened a production unit in Germany, Deutsche Universal Studios-Film AG, under the direction of Joe Pasternak.

In early 1927, Universal Studios had been negotiating deals with cartoon producers since they wanted to get back into producing them.

Universal Studios subsequently severed its link to Mintz and formed its own in-house animation studio to produce Oswald cartoons headed by Walter Lantz.

In February 2006, NBCUniversal Studios sold all the Disney-animated Oswald cartoons, along with the rights to the character himself, to The Walt Disney Company.

Universal Studios already had a reputation for nepotism—at one time, 70 of Carl, Sr.

Universal Studios bought and built theaters, converted the studio to sound production, and made several forays into high-quality production.

Universal Studios was forced to seek a $750, 000 production loan from the Standard Capital Corporation, pledging the Laemmle family's controlling interest in Universal Studios as collateral.

The success of the film led Universal Studios to offer her a contract, which for the first five years of her career produced her most successful pictures.

Rank and International remained interested in Universal Studios, however, culminating in the studio's reorganization as Universal Studios-International; the merger was announced on July 30, 1946.

Universal Studios stopped the studio's low-budget production of B movies, serials and curtailed Universal's horror and "Arabian Nights" cycles.

Universal Studios reduced the studio's output from its wartime average of fifty films per year to thirty-five films a year.

Universal Studios-International became responsible for the American distribution of Rank's British productions, including such classics as David Lean's Great Expectations and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948).

Universal Studios reverted in name to Universal Pictures from Universal-International.

Television production made up much of the studio's output, with Universal Studios heavily committed, in particular, to deals with NBC providing up to half of all prime time shows for several seasons.

Wallis retired from Universal Studios after making the film Rooster Cogburn, a sequel to True Grit (1969), which Wallis had produced at Paramount.

In 1983, Universal Studios Pictures launched an independent film arm designed to release specialty films, Universal Studios Classics, and the division has sights on separation.

On October 4, 1999, Universal Studios renewed its commitments to United International Pictures to release its films internationally through 2006.

Universal Studios located Japanese electronics manufacturer Matsushita Electric, which agreed to acquire MCA for $6.

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The resulting media super-conglomerate was renamed NBCUniversal, while Universal Studios Inc remained the name of the production subsidiary.

Longtime studio head Ron Meyer would give up oversight of the film studio and appointed Vice Chairman of NBCUniversal Studios, providing consultation to CEO Steve Burke on all of the company's operations.

In June 2014, Universal Studios Partnerships took over licensing consumer products for NBC and Sprout with the expectation that all licensing would eventually be centralized within NBCUniversal Studios.

Universal Studios took over the distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation starting in 2019 with the release of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, after DreamWorks Animation's distribution deal with 20th Century Fox ended.

On February 15, 2017, Universal Studios Pictures acquired a minority stake in Amblin Partners, strengthening the relationship between Universal Studios and Amblin, and reuniting a minority percentage of the DreamWorks Pictures label with DreamWorks Animation.

In December 2019, Universal Studios Pictures entered early negotiations to distribute upcoming feature film properties based on the Lego toys.

Universal Studios was the first studio to have released three billion-dollar films in one year; this distinction was achieved in 2015 with Furious 7, Jurassic World, and Minions.