Predecessor: Independent Moving Pictures
Founded: April 30, 1912 (112 years ago)
Founders:

• Carl Laemmle

• Pat Powers

• David Horsley

• William Swanson

• Mark Dintenfass

• Charles Baumann

• Robert H. Cochrane

• Adam Kessel

• Jules Brulatour

Universal City Studios LLC, commonly known as Universal Pictures, is an American film production and distribution company and a division of Universal Studios, Inc., which is owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour, Universal is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States and the fifth oldest in the world, following Gaumont, Pathé, Titanus, and Nordisk Film. It is also one of the "Big Five" film studios.

Universal Pictures is known for its highly successful film franchises, including Fast & Furious, Jurassic Park, and Despicable Me. The studio's library features numerous iconic films, such as Jaws and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, both of which were the highest-grossing films of their time. As a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Universal was also part of the "Little Three" majors during Hollywood's golden age.

History

Early Years

Universal was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour. According to one story, Laemmle, a former dry goods store owner, visited a Chicago nickelodeon and spent hours counting patrons to calculate the day's revenue. This experience inspired him to leave his previous business and invest in several nickelodeons. For Laemmle and other early movie entrepreneurs, the formation of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Patents Company (the "Edison Trust") in 1908 posed a challenge, as it required exhibitors to pay fees for showing Trust-produced films. The Trust, which controlled patents like the Latham Loop used in cameras and projectors, sought to monopolize distribution and collect fees across all aspects of movie production and exhibition.

In response, Laemmle and other nickelodeon owners decided to bypass Edison by producing their own films. In June 1909, Laemmle founded the Yankee Film Company with his brothers-in-law, Abe and Julius Stern.

This company soon evolved into the Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP), based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which was a major hub for early American film production. Laemmle broke with the Edison Trust's practice of refusing to give performers screen credits by naming movie stars, thereby attracting leading actors of the time and helping to establish the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as "The Biograph Girl," and actor King Baggot, in what is considered one of the earliest instances of a studio using stars for marketing purposes.

The Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York City on April 30, 1912, and officially established on June 8, 1912. Carl Laemmle, who emerged as the president in July 1912, was the leading figure in a partnership with Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, and Jules Brulatour. The company was formed through the merger of several entities: Independent Moving Pictures (IMP), Powers Motion Picture Company, Rex Motion Picture Manufacturing Company, Champion Film Company, Nestor Film Company, and the New York Motion Picture Company. Over time, Laemmle would buy out all the other partners, consolidating control under his leadership. The new Universal studio was structured as a vertically integrated company, combining movie production, distribution, and exhibition under one corporate umbrella, a key feature of the Studio System era.

By the end of 1912, Universal followed the industry's westward trend and concentrated its production efforts in the Hollywood area. During this period, the company began publishing an internal magazine under alternating names—Universal Weekly and Moving Picture Weekly. The magazine was designed to promote Universal's films to exhibitors, serving as a key marketing tool. With much of Universal's early film output lost to fires and nitrate degradation, surviving issues of these magazines have become invaluable resources for film historians, providing rare insights into the studio's early productions.

On March 15, 1915, Carl Laemmle opened Universal City Studios, the world's largest motion picture production facility at the time, on a 230-acre converted farm just over the Cahuenga Pass from Hollywood.

This marked the start of studio management as a distinct subsidiary of Universal, becoming the third pillar of its operations. Unlike other studio heads, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, and Universal quickly grew into the largest studio in Hollywood, a position it maintained for a decade. However, the studio focused primarily on producing inexpensive melodramas, westerns, and serials aimed at small-town audiences.

In 1916, Universal introduced a three-tier branding system to help theater owners and audiences quickly assess their films, as the studio did not own any theaters. The tiers were: Red Feather Photoplays for low-budget films, Bluebird Photoplays for mainstream releases and more ambitious productions, and "Jewel" films for high-budget, prestige pictures featuring notable actors. Directors of these "Jewel" films included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall, and Lois Weber, one of Hollywood's few female directors. By the mid-1920s, Universal began branding its most expensive and heavily promoted films as "Super-Jewel" productions, including notable titles like Foolish Wives (1922), The Acquittal (1923), A Lady of Quality (1924), Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927), and Surrender (1928).

Despite his innovations, Laemmle was a cautious studio head, choosing not to develop a theater chain like his rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew. He also financed his films entirely out of pocket, avoiding debt. This conservative approach nearly bankrupted Universal when actor-director Erich von Stroheim's extravagant productions, Blind Husbands (1919) and Foolish Wives (1922), far exceeded their budgets. However, Universal recouped some of the costs through a sensational ad campaign that drew large audiences. During the mid-1910s, character actor Lon Chaney became a significant box office draw for Universal, though he left in 1917 over a salary dispute. His biggest hits with the studio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), were made after he returned for isolated projects.

In the early 1920s, Laemmle delegated most production decisions to Irving Thalberg, his personal secretary, who demonstrated keen insights into studio efficiency. Promoted to studio chief in 1919, Thalberg improved Universal's output in terms of quality and prestige and managed the increasingly costly productions of star director Erich von Stroheim, whom he eventually fired during the production of Merry-Go-Round (1923). In 1922, Louis B. Mayer lured Thalberg to his studio, and when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) was formed in 1924, Thalberg continued in a leadership role there. Without Thalberg's guidance, Universal slipped into the ranks of second-tier studios, a status it maintained for several decades.

In 1926, Universal opened a production unit in Germany called Deutsche Universal-Film AG, led by Joe Pasternak. This unit produced three to four films per year until 1936, eventually relocating to Hungary and Austria as Hitler's influence grew in central Europe. With the advent of sound, these films were primarily made in German, with occasional productions in Hungarian or Polish. In the U.S., Universal Pictures did not distribute any of this subsidiary's films, but some were shown through independent, foreign-language film distributors in New York City without English subtitles. The subsidiary was ultimately dissolved due to Nazi persecution and a change in ownership at Universal Pictures.

Initially, Universal adhered to a "clean picture" policy, but by April 1927, Carl Laemmle viewed this as a mistake. He realized that "unclean pictures" from other studios were more profitable, while Universal continued to lose money.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

In early 1927, Universal sought to return to producing cartoons and began negotiating with various producers. On March 4, Charles Mintz signed a contract with Universal in the presence of its vice president, R. H. Cochrane. Under this deal, Mintz's company, Winkler Pictures, would produce 26 "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoons for Universal. The character was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, with the Walt Disney Studio handling the animation under Winkler's supervision.

The Oswald cartoons enjoyed a successful theatrical run, leading to a new contract that secured three more years of Oswald productions with Universal. However, when Mintz demanded that Disney accept a lower fee for producing the films, Disney refused. In response, Mintz hired most of Disney's animators to work at his own studio. Meanwhile, Disney and Iwerks secretly created Mickey Mouse while completing the remaining Oswald films under their contract. After this conflict, Universal severed ties with Mintz and established its own in-house animation studio, headed by Walter Lantz, who later created Woody Woodpecker in 1940.

In February 2006, NBCUniversal sold all the Disney-animated Oswald cartoons and the rights to the character to The Walt Disney Company. In exchange, Disney released ABC sportscaster Al Michaels from his contract, allowing him to work on NBC's newly acquired Sunday night NFL football package. Universal retained ownership of the remaining Oswald cartoons.

Keeping leadership of the studio in the family

In 1928, Carl Laemmle Sr. appointed his son, Carl Jr., as head of Universal Pictures as a 21st birthday gift. Universal was already known for its nepotism—at one point, it was said that 70 of Carl Sr.'s relatives were on the payroll, earning him the nickname "Uncle Carl" around the studios. The studio's reputation for family employment was famously captured in Ogden Nash's rhyme, "Uncle Carl Laemmle/Has a very large faemmle." Among the relatives on the payroll was future Academy Award-winning director and producer William Wyler.

Carl Jr. persuaded his father to modernize Universal by acquiring and building theaters, converting the studio to sound production, and pursuing high-quality films. His early projects included the critically panned part-talkie version of Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat (1929), the lavish musical Broadway (1929) with Technicolor sequences, and Universal's first all-color musical feature, King of Jazz (1930). His efforts also led to the production of the more serious All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year.

Carl Jr. carved out a niche for Universal by launching a series of horror films that continued into the 1940s, affectionately known as "Universal horror." This series included classics like Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Invisible Man (1933). Other notable productions from this period include Tay Garnett's Destination Unknown (1933), John M. Stahl's Imitation of Life (1934), and William Wyler's The Good Fairy (1935).

The Laemmle's lose control

Universal's push into high-quality productions ultimately marked the end of the Laemmle era at the studio. Modernizing and upgrading a film conglomerate during the Great Depression was a risky endeavor, and Universal briefly fell into receivership. While the theater chain was dismantled, Carl Jr. maintained control over distribution, studio, and production operations. The turning point came with the lavish production of Show Boat (1936), a remake of Universal's earlier 1929 version. Unlike the earlier film, this new version was based on the Broadway musical and featured stars from the stage production. Carl Jr.'s extravagant spending worried stockholders, and they demanded the Laemmles secure a $750,000 production loan from Standard Capital Corporation to begin work on the film. This was the first time Universal had borrowed money in its 26-year history. However, with the production going $300,000 over budget, Standard called in the loan, and Universal, unable to pay, was forced to relinquish control on April 2, 1936.

Despite the fact that Show Boat (released a little over a month later) was a critical and financial success, it could not prevent the Laemmles from being ousted from the studio they had founded. Since the Laemmles personally supervised its production, Show Boat was released with Carl Laemmle and Carl Laemmle Jr.'s names on the credits and featured in the film's advertising. However, Standard Capital's J. Cheever Cowdin took over as president and chairman of the board, implementing severe budget cuts. He was joined by British entrepreneurs C.M. Woolf and J. Arthur Rank, who acquired a significant stake in the studio. The grand ambitions of the Laemmle era were abandoned, and many of Universal's talent, such as William Wyler and Margaret Sullavan, left the studio.

Meanwhile, producer Joe Pasternak, who had successfully produced light musicals with young sopranos for Universal's German subsidiary, replicated his formula in the United States. Teenage singer Deanna Durbin starred in Pasternak's first American film, Three Smart Girls (1936), which became a box-office hit and reportedly resolved the studio's financial problems. The film's success led Universal to sign Durbin to a contract, and her first five years with the studio produced her most successful pictures.

When Pasternak stopped producing Deanna Durbin's films and she began transitioning to more dramatic roles, Universal signed 13-year-old Gloria Jean in 1939 to star in her own series of musicals, much like Pasternak's earlier productions. Gloria Jean went on to appear alongside stars like Bing Crosby, W. C. Fields, and Donald O'Connor. Another popular Universal film from the late 1930s was Destry Rides Again (1939), which featured James Stewart as Destry and marked Marlene Dietrich's comeback after her departure from Paramount.

By the early 1940s, Universal focused on lower-budget films, such as westerns, melodramas, serials, and sequels to its earlier horror films, which were now mostly relegated to B pictures. The studio developed several film series, including The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys (1938–43), the Baby Sandy comedies (1938–41), and films with Hugh Herbert (1938–42) and The Ritz Brothers (1940–43). It also produced musicals featuring Robert Paige, Jane Frazee, The Andrews Sisters, and The Merry Macs (1938–45), and westerns with stars like Tom Mix (1932–33), Buck Jones (1933–36), Bob Baker (1938–39), Johnny Mack Brown (1938–43), Rod Cameron (1944–45), and Kirby Grant (1946–47).

Universal, lacking its own roster of big stars, often borrowed talent from other studios or hired freelance actors. Alongside Stewart and Dietrich, Margaret Sullavan and Bing Crosby were notable stars who appeared in Universal films during this time. The studio also attracted talent from radio, including Edgar Bergen, W. C. Fields, and the comedy duo Abbott and Costello, whose military comedy Buck Privates (1941) catapulted them to national fame.

During the war years, Universal partnered with producer Walter Wanger and director Fritz Lang, which allowed the studio to produce more prestigious films. However, Universal’s core audience remained at neighborhood theaters, where it continued to thrive with low- to medium-budget films. The studio released new Sherlock Holmes mysteries (1942–46) starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, teenage musicals with Gloria Jean, Donald O'Connor, and Peggy Ryan (1942–43), and adaptations of the radio series Inner Sanctum Mysteries with Lon Chaney Jr. (1943–45). Alfred Hitchcock was also borrowed from Selznick International Pictures to direct two films: Saboteur (1942) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

As a studio known for its lower-budget films, Universal was slow to adopt Technicolor, only using the three-strip Technicolor process for the first time in Arabian Nights (1942), starring Jon Hall and Maria Montez. It also employed Technicolor in the 1943 remake of its 1925 horror melodrama Phantom of the Opera, featuring Claude Rains and Nelson Eddy. With the success of these films, Universal began regularly producing higher-budget Technicolor pictures.

Universal International and Decca Records

In 1945, J. Arthur Rank, who had owned a stake in Universal for nearly a decade and sought to expand his American presence, entered into a four-way merger involving Universal, the independent company International Pictures, and producer Kenneth Young. The new entity, United World Pictures, proved unsuccessful and was dissolved within a year. However, both Rank and International remained interested in Universal, which led to the studio's reorganization as Universal-International, with the merger announced on July 30, 1946. William Goetz, a co-founder of International Pictures alongside Leo Spitz, was appointed head of production at the newly named Universal International Pictures, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures Company, Inc. This subsidiary also acted as an import-export entity and held copyrights for the production division's films.

Goetz, who was the son-in-law of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, aimed to bring "prestige" to the rebranded company. He halted the production of low-budget B movies, serials, and significantly reduced Universal's focus on its horror films and "Arabian Nights" series. Additionally, Goetz cut the studio's annual output from its wartime average of fifty films per year (almost double that of other major studios) to thirty-five films. Despite these changes, distribution and copyright control continued to operate under the name of Universal Pictures Company, Inc

Goetz implemented an ambitious plan for Universal-International, which took on the American distribution of Rank's British productions, including notable films such as David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948). Expanding further, Universal-International ventured into the lucrative non-theatrical market by acquiring a majority stake in home-movie dealer Castle Films in 1947, eventually taking full control of the company in 1951. For three decades, Castle Films provided "highlights" reels from Universal's film library to home-movie enthusiasts and collectors. Goetz also licensed Universal's pre-Universal-International film library to Jack Broeder's Realart Pictures for cinema re-releases, although Realart was prohibited from showing the films on television.

Despite these efforts, the studio's production arm faced challenges. Although there were a few successes such as The Killers (1946) and The Naked City (1948), many of Universal-International's new theatrical releases struggled at the box office. By the late 1940s, Goetz departed, and the studio shifted its focus back to low-budget and series films. Hits like Ma and Pa Kettle (1949), a spin-off of The Egg and I (1947), and the inexpensive Francis (1950), featuring a talking mule, became staples for the company. Abbott and Costello films, including Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), also remained top-grossing productions. With Rank losing interest, he sold his shares to investor Milton Rackmil, whose Decca Records took full control of Universal in 1952. The studio retained Abbott and Costello and the Walter Lantz cartoon studio, which continued to release its cartoons with Universal-International's films.

In the 1950s, Universal-International resumed its series of Arabian Nights films, many starring Tony Curtis, and experienced success with monster and science fiction films produced by William Alland, directed by Jack Arnold, and starring John Agar. The studio also found success with melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk and produced by Ross Hunter, which would later be critically reassessed more positively. Notable stars of the period included Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Jeff Chandler, Audie Murphy, and John Gavin.

Decca kept production budgets lean but benefited from changes in the film industry following the 1948 U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures, et al. decision, which allowed leading actors more freedom to choose their projects. In 1950, MCA agent Lew Wasserman struck a groundbreaking deal with Universal for his client James Stewart, offering a share of the profits from three films instead of a large salary. This arrangement, starting with the hit film Winchester '73 (1950), became a standard practice for many future productions at Universal and other studios.

MCA takes over

In the early 1950s, Universal established its own distribution company in France, and by the late 1960s, it also launched a production company in Paris, known as Universal Productions France S.A., though it was sometimes referred to as Universal Pictures France. Apart from producing two films, Claude Chabrol's Le scandale (1967) and Romain Gary's Les oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou, the company mainly engaged in French and other European co-productions. Notable projects included Louis Malle's Lacombe, Lucien, Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses (1974), and Fred Zinnemann's The Day of the Jackal (1973). Universal Productions France S.A. was involved in about 20 French film productions before being incorporated into the French Cinema International Corporation in the early 1970s.

By the late 1950s, the film industry was undergoing significant changes due to the breakup of studio-theater chains and the rise of television, which reduced cinema audiences. The Music Corporation of America (MCA), which had become a prominent television producer, rented space at Republic Studios for its Revue Productions subsidiary. In 1958, a struggling Universal sold its 360-acre studio lot to MCA for $11 million, which was then renamed Revue Studios. Although MCA owned the studio lot, it did not own Universal Pictures but had growing influence over its products. The studio was modernized, and MCA's high-profile clients, such as Doris Day, Lana Turner, Cary Grant, and Alfred Hitchcock, were signed to Universal contracts.

In mid-1962, MCA completed its takeover of Universal Pictures as part of the MCA-Decca Records merger, restoring the name to Universal Pictures from Universal-International. MCA signed almost all of its clients to Universal contracts and, in 1964, merged the motion picture and television divisions of Universal Pictures and Revue Productions, the latter renamed as Universal Television in 1966. Under MCA's leadership, Universal became a major studio, producing commercial films with prominent actors and directors. The studio also launched a successful studio tour subsidiary in 1964.

Universal's output heavily featured television production, with the studio providing up to half of all prime-time shows for several seasons, particularly through deals with NBC. The studio innovated by developing made-for-television movies. In 1982, Universal became the base for many Norman Lear shows produced by Tandem Productions/Embassy Television, including Diff'rent Strokes, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, The Facts of Life, and Silver Spoons.

During this period, Hal B. Wallis, formerly a major producer at Paramount, joined Universal and produced several films, including Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). Although neither film was a major financial success, both received Academy Award nominations. Wallis retired from Universal after producing Rooster Cogburn (1975), a sequel to True Grit (1969), which featured John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn. Despite being their only film together, Rooster Cogburn was only a moderate success.