60 Fun Facts About Paramount Pictures

In which year does Paramount Pictures date its founding?

That makes it the second-oldest surviving studio in the United States, behind Universal.

Which studio is the only American film studio older than Paramount?

Globally, Gaumont, Pathe, Titanus and Nordisk Film are all older still.

Which Hungarian-born producer founded the Famous Players Film Company that grew into Paramount?

He had been an early investor in nickelodeons and later served as chairman emeritus.

What slogan did Zukor adopt for his first film company, which put stage stars on screen?

The idea was to attract middle-class audiences by putting leading stage actors on film.

Which legendary French actress starred in Famous Players' first film?

The film was Les Amours de la reine Elisabeth, and by mid-1913 the company had completed five films.

Which brother-in-law lent Jesse L. Lasky the money to start his Feature Play Company?

He was still known as Samuel Goldfish at the time.

Which director, the Lasky company's first employee, set up in a rented Hollywood horse barn?

He had virtually no film experience; the site became known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn.

What was the title of the Lasky company's first feature film, released in 1914?

It was shot at the barn between Vine Street, Selma Avenue, Argyle Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.

Which Utah theatre owner founded the original Paramount Pictures Corporation as a distributor in 1914?

He is also credited with drawing the mountain logo from memory on a napkin.

What was Paramount's original distribution company called before taking the Paramount name in 1914?

It was the first successful nationwide film distributor at a time when films were sold state by state.

What was the name of the corporation Zukor formed through a three-way merger in 1916?

Valued at $12.5 million, it was the largest film company of its day.

What was the practice that forced exhibitors to buy a year of Paramount films to get one star's pictures?

It gave Paramount a leading position but drew antitrust pursuit for more than twenty years.

Which studio facility did Lasky buy in 1926 that remains part of Paramount's headquarters?

The 26-acre site at 5451 Marathon Street cost $1 million.

On which Hollywood street is Paramount's headquarters, at number 5555?

It is the last major studio still located in Hollywood proper.

Which animation studio, home of Betty Boop and Popeye, made cartoons for Paramount from 1927?

A 1935 poll showed Popeye was even more popular than Mickey Mouse.

What did Paramount rename the New York cartoon studio behind Popeye after acquiring it?

That incarnation kept producing cartoons until 1967 but never matched the Fleischers' artistic acclaim.

Paramount was an early investor in radio, buying a 50% interest in which network in 1928?

It sold within a few years, but decades later Viacom would own both Paramount and that network.

Which Chicago theatre chain did Zukor acquire in 1926?

Balaban became Paramount president in 1936 and led its relaunch after bankruptcy.

Which taxi and rental-car magnate did Zukor hire in 1931 to fix Paramount's finances?

His measures failed and the company went into receivership in January 1933.

Whose suggestive 1933 films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel helped trigger Production Code enforcement?

The Catholic Legion of Decency threatened a boycott if the Code was not enforced.

The 1948 Supreme Court case United States v. Paramount Pictures ruled that studios could not do what?

The decision split off United Paramount Theaters and effectively ended the classic studio system.

Which television network did the spun-off United Paramount Theaters acquire in 1953?

Leonard Goldenson led ABC to first place in the Nielsen ratings by the mid-1970s.

Paramount's experimental 1939 Los Angeles TV station became which first commercial station on the West Coast?

It was sold to Gene Autry in 1964 for a then-phenomenal $12.5 million.

Which 1956 DeMille remake of his own 1923 film gave the struggling studio some relief?

DeMille had been associated with Paramount since 1913 and died in 1959.

How many of its pre-1950 films did Paramount sell to MCA in February 1958?

The library included the Marx Brothers films, most of the Road pictures and Double Indemnity.

Which industrial conglomerate bought Paramount in 1966?

Its boss Charles Bluhdorn immediately put his stamp on the studio by installing a virtually unknown producer as head of production.

Which production chief restored Paramount's fortunes with Rosemary's Baby, Love Story and The Godfather?

He held the job for eight years despite some rough times.

From whom did Paramount's parent buy the neighboring Desilu studio in 1967?

The Desilu lot had once belonged to RKO Pictures.

Which studio joined Paramount's Cinema International Corporation as a third partner in 1973?

Both Paramount and CIC later entered the video market, with Paramount Home Video and CIC Video.

Which executive led the 1970s Paramount team nicknamed the "Killer-Dillers"?

His associates Eisner, Katzenberg, Dawn Steel and Don Simpson all went on to run studios of their own.

Which two late-1970s "high concept" Paramount musicals hit big worldwide?

Diller's team also had a science-fiction franchise in Star Trek to compete with Star Wars.

Which fourth network did Paramount finally launch in 1995, with Star Trek: Voyager as its flagship?

It lasted eleven years before merging with The WB to become The CW in 2006.

Which video game company did Paramount briefly own around 1981 before selling it after the 1983 crash?

The two later reunited on the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog films.

Which comedian starred in 1980s Paramount hits Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop and Coming to America?

He was the one exception when the studio tried and failed to build a stable of exclusively contracted talent in 1985.

What did the parent conglomerate rename itself in 1989, after its main asset?

Its stock ticker changed from GW to PCI.

Which home-shopping company lost the 1993 bidding war for Paramount to Viacom?

Viacom ultimately paid $10 billion for the Paramount holdings.

Which two New York teams did Paramount's parent own when Viacom acquired it in 1994?

The company also owned Madison Square Garden and publisher Simon & Schuster.

Which Paramount co-production became the highest-grossing film ever on release, at over $1.8 billion?

It was co-produced with 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment.

Which studio did Paramount buy in December 2005 for $1.6 billion?

The deal excluded DreamWorks Animation, though Paramount distributed its films from 2006 to 2012.

In 2014 Paramount became the first major Hollywood studio to do what?

The studio also led the industry's Digital Cinema Initiatives effort in 2002.

In 2018 Paramount became the first major studio to sign a multi-picture deal with which company?

A year earlier it had sold the international rights to Annihilation to the same streamer.

Which 2018 horror hit was the first film produced and released under Paramount's new management team?

That April the studio posted its first quarterly profit since 2015.

What did ViacomCBS rename itself in February 2022?

The company's streaming service had already been rebranded as Paramount+ to trade on the studio's name.

Which Skydance CEO became head of Paramount when the two companies merged in 2025?

The merger was valued at $28 billion and received regulatory approval in July 2025.

Which studio's 700-film library did Paramount gain distribution of via a 49% stake bought in 2019?

The stake was purchased from beIN Media Group and the deal closed in April 2020.

How many stars originally ringed the mountain in the Paramount logo?

They stood for the actors the studio had under contract; the count fell to 22 in the late 1960s.

Which Utah peak is the original Paramount mountain logo thought to be modeled on?

Hodkinson, a native of the Ogden area, allegedly drew it from memory on a napkin in 1914.

Which real mountain became the primary basis of the enhanced logo introduced with Iron Man 2 in 2010?

Specifically the south col area, and the fanfare Paramount on Parade was used only on Mean Girls.

Which composer wrote the new Paramount fanfare for the logo introduced in December 2011?

The 2011 logo added a surrounding mountain range and a sun shining in the background.

What byline was added below the Paramount logo in August 2025?

The mountain was also slightly redrawn.

Which 1927 Paramount film won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture?

It starred Clara Bow, and Gary Cooper appeared in a small role that helped launch his career.

At which Academy Awards ceremony did Paramount's The Godfather win Best Picture?

Marlon Brando won Best Actor and Puzo and Coppola won for Best Adapted Screenplay.

At what age did the founder of Famous Players, Paramount's original parent, die in 1976?

He had stepped down as chairman in 1964 to become chairman emeritus.

Which early feature did Paramount's founder produce in 1913, one of America's first feature-length films?

He is remembered as one of the three founders of Paramount.

Which seafood restaurant chain grew out of a Paramount licensing deal for a Best Picture winner?

The same licensing group also created the Cheers franchise bars.

Paramount is the last major studio still headquartered in which Los Angeles district?

Warner Bros. left for Burbank in 1930, and Columbia followed in 1973 before moving again to Culver City.

Paramount's 1920s East Coast studio in Queens, New York, took what name in 1982?

Zukor ran two production studios at once and built a chain of nearly 2,000 screens.

Which theme-park company bought Paramount Parks in 2006?

The parks had been part of the Viacom empire alongside the studio's other licensing businesses.

Who replaced the fired Jim Gianopulos as head of Paramount Pictures in September 2021?

Robbins, the Nickelodeon president and AwesomenessTV founder, had earlier launched Paramount Players in 2017.

Paramount Theatres Limited opened its first British cinema in 1930 in which city?

The UK chain was sold to the Rank Organisation in 1939 and folded into Odeon Cinemas.