Researching Film Institutions

Warner Brothers20th Century FoxUniversal StudiosLionsgateSummit Entertainment

Warner Bros A major film institution based in California and New York. Warner Bros is globally

recognised for the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of a variety of creative content.

Some of their most successful films include: Harry Potter, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Matrix Reloaded, The Hangover, I am Legend and Sherlock Holmes.

They produce and distribute films from a variety of genres including Comedy, Romance, Fantasy, Adventure and Action.

As I am doing a thriller film for my final production I researched some of the films created by Warner Bros in this genre to see how successful this institution is, with this genre. Some of the films include: The Public Enemy (1931), The Fugitive (1993), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Se7en (1995), The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010).

From research, this doesn’t seem to be the institutions most popular genre therefore I don’t think this would be the best distributor for my film.

20th Century Fox

Founded in 1935, 20th Century Fox is one of the six major American film studios and the most recognised in the world.

There most popular and successful genres of film include Comedy, Fantasy and Family films. Their most successful films from these genres include: Alvin and the Chipmunks, Night at the Museum and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

From the thriller genre, 20th Century Fox have distributed the films Taken, Unstoppable and Memento.

However, this institution highly focuses on comedy and family films therefore I don’t think that this would be the most suitable company to distribute my film.

Universal Studios

Founded in 1912, Universal Studios is one of the six major movie studios. It is one of the oldest American movie studios and is still in continuous production and distribution of theatrical and non-theatrical filmed entertainment.

They tend to focus on creating films from the drama, romance and adventure genres and have had recent success with the Academy Award Winning films: Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, King Kong and Brokeback Mountain.

Some well known thriller films produced or distributed by Universal include: The Mummy, Apollo 13, Psycho and True Lies.

From the thrillers that Universal have created, I’m unsure as to whether this would be the company to distribute my film as they tend to make more action and adventure films rather than thriller.

Lionsgate

This is a movie studio founded in Vancouver, Canada but headquartered in Santa Monica, California and as of 2007, it is the most commercially successful independent film and television company in North America.

They are recognised for producing and distributing motion pictures, television programming, home entertainment and family entertainment.

From research, Lionsgate most popular genres of film include Drama, Action and Thriller.

Lionsgate have been responsible for the production and distribution some of the recent well known thriller/suspense movies which include: The Hunger Games, Abduction, The Lincoln Lawyer, Sinister, Gone, The Cabin in the Woods and Man on a Ledge.

From the type of films they produce and distribute, this would be a more suitable institution to distribute my film as they are well known for the thriller/suspense genre which is what the genre of my opening sequence will be.

Summit Entertainment

Summit Entertainment is an American film studio, subsidiary of Lionsgate Entertainment. It’s headquartered in Universal City, California with international offices in London.

Founded in 1991, initially to handle film sales in foreign countries. However, they had major success in 2008 with the release of the Twilight series.

Like Lionsgate, Summit Entertainment tend to focus on Drama, Romance and thriller film genres.

Although a fairly more recently founded studio, Summit Entertainment has had decent amount of success, particularly recently with the thriller genre. These include: Fair Game, Source Code, Alex Cross and the new release of the Divergent series.

As I am creating a low budget, feature film, I would be more inclined to use this institution than Lionsgate as it is a smaller production company therefore more suitable for the type of film I will produce.