WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. is a fully integrated, broad-based entertainment company and a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment and their related businesses. A Time Warner Company, Warner Bros. Entertainment stands at the forefront of every aspect of the entertainment industry from feature films to television, home entertainment/DVD, animation, product and brand licensing and interactive entertainment. The company’s vast library, considered one of the best and largest in the world, consists of more than 6,600 feature films, 48,000 television titles and 14,000 animated titles (including over 1,500 classic animated shorts). Warner Bros. Entertainment’s employee population ranges from 7,000 to 15,000 on any given day in North America (depending on the level of television and movie production) and some 2,000 employees overseas.
In 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures’ domestic and international divisions each had their most successful years ever, as well as their seventh consecutive billion dollar-plus years at the box office. The Studio’s domestic box office reached $1.42 billion, and overseas receipts soared to $2.24 billion, an industry record. Warner Home Video was once again the industry’s leader, with an overall 20 percent marketshare. The Warner Bros. Television Group’s companies remained category leaders, producing for all platforms and outlets, and are moving boldly into the digital realm with ad-supported video-on-demand as well as broadband and wireless destinations.
The Warner Bros. Pictures Group brings together the Studio’s motion picture production, marketing and distribution operations into a single entity. The Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures International and Warner Independent Pictures, was formed to streamline the Studio’s film production process and bring those businesses’ organizational structures in line with Warner Bros.’ television and home entertainment operations.
Warner Bros. Pictures produces and distributes a wide-ranging slate of some 18-22 films each year, employing a business paradigm that mitigates risk while maximizing productivity and capital. Warner Bros. Pictures either fully finances or co-finances the films it produces and maintains worldwide distribution rights. It also monetizes its distribution and marketing operations by distributing films that are totally financed and produced by others. The Studio’s 2008 feature film slate includes “10,000 BC,” “Speed Racer,” “Get Smart,” “The Dark Knight” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
Warner Bros. Pictures International is a global leader in the marketing and distribution of feature films, operating offices in more than 30 countries and releasing films in over 120 international territories, either directly to theaters or in conjunction with partner companies and co-ventures.
Founded in August 2003, Warner Independent Pictures finances, produces, acquires and theatrically distributes up to 10 feature films a year, largely budgeted under $20 million. Warner Independent served as the domestic distributor of the sleeper hit documentary “March of the Penguins,” which is the second most successful documentary film of all time. Warner Independent’s 2008 slate includes “Snow Angels,” “Funny Games” and “Towelhead.”
The Warner Bros. Television Group oversees the entire portfolio of Warner Bros. Entertainment’s television businesses, including worldwide production, traditional and digital distribution and broadcasting. In the traditional television arena, WBTVG produces primetime and cable (Warner Bros. Television, Warner Horizon Television), first-run (Telepictures Productions) and animation (Warner Bros. Animation) series, which are distributed worldwide by three category-leading distribution arms/operations (Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution and Warner Bros. International Television Distribution).
Among the primetime series produced by the Warner Bros. Television Group are “ER,” “Smallville,” “Without a Trace,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Cold Case,” “Nip/Tuck,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Supernatural,” “The Closer” and “Men in Trees.” The Warner Bros. Television Group also produces first-run syndicated series, including the Emmy Award-winning “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Extra” and “The Tyra Banks Show,” and such animated series as “The Batman” and “Legion of Superheroes.”
Warner Bros. Entertainment is also a partner with CBS in The CW Television Network. WBTVG is an innovative leader in developing new business models for the evolving television landscape, including ad-supported video-on-demand, broadband and wireless, and has digital distribution agreements in place with all of the broadcast networks (representing an industry first for a major studio with unaffiliated networks). Internationally, the Studio is one of the world’s largest distributors of feature films, television programs and animation to the worldwide television marketplace, licensing some 50,000 hours of television programming, including more than 6,000 feature films and 70 current series, dubbed or subtitled in more than 40 languages, to telecasters and cablecasters in more than 175 countries. The group recently formed Studio 2.0, a digital production venture producing original short-form programming for broadband and wireless and a digital media sales unit devoted specifically to multiplatform domestic advertiser sales for both broadband and wireless.
Warner Bros. Animation’s combined classic and contemporary library currently boasts 14,000 animated episodes and shorts which air on domestic broadcast networks, as well as cable networks and in direct-to-video releases around the world. The classic library includes such brands as Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears as well as such beloved characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety, Taz, Tom and Jerry, Popeye, Batman, Superman, the Flintstones, the Jetsons and Scooby-Doo.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group brings together Warner Bros. Entertainment’s home video (Warner Home Video), digital distribution (Warner Bros. Digital Distribution), interactive entertainment/videogames (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment), direct-to-DVD production (Warner Premiere), technical operations (Warner Bros. Technical Operations) and anti-piracy (Warner Bros. Anti-Piracy Operations) businesses in order to maximize current and next-generation distribution scenarios. WBHEG is responsible for the global distribution of content through DVD, electronic sell-through and transactional VOD, and delivery of theatrical content to wireless and online channels and is also a significant worldwide publisher for both internal and third party videogame titles.
Warner Home Video distributes to 90 international territories—more than any other studio—commanding the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. In 2007, in the U.S., Warner Home Video was the marketshare leader with 20% of overall purchase and retail spending. WHV was also the first studio to surpass sales of 100,0000 copies of a high definition DVD title with the 2006 Academy Award Best Picture winner, “The Departed.”
With more than 3,700 active licensees worldwide, Warner Bros. Consumer Products licenses the rights to names, likenesses and logos for all of the intellectual properties in the Warner Bros. Entertainment’s vast film and television library. With a global network of offices and agents in key regions throughout the world, including North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe, WBCP maintains an ongoing commitment to expand and build the power of its core brands’ recognition in the international marketplace through strong and creative merchandising, promotional marketing and retail programs.
DC Comics, which has been in continuous publication for more than 60 years, is the leading comic book publisher in the industry and the creator of some of the world’s most recognized icons. DC’s characters continue to headline blockbuster feature films, live-action and animated television series, direct-to-video releases, collectors’ books, online entertainment, countless licensing and marketing arrangements and, most recently, graphic novels. DC continues to attract new readers and fans all over the world with its signature characters Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Justice League leading the way.
Warner Bros. International Cinemas provides a true state-of-the-art movie experience to audiences in Japan and Italy, with more than 65 multiplex cinemas and more than 600 screens internationally, as well as manages 15 theaters with 101 screens in the U.S. One of the pioneers in multiplex development for the international marketplace, WBIC is continually exploring new markets for expansion.
Warner Bros. Entertainment is headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios lot, 142 acres in Burbank, California, which is considered one of the foremost motion picture and television production and post-production facilities in the world and home to 34 soundstages (including one of the world’s tallest stages, which has an in-ground tank capable of holding more than two million gallons of water).