Today in History: Paramount Pictures’ 10 most successful movies in their 106-year existence
Paramount Pictures was founded on this day in 1912, and has created some blockbuster movies since then. Here are their 10 highest-earning films of all time.
Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company, which was started by Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor, who had noticed that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants.
That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature Play Company with money borrowed from his brother-in-law, Samuel Goldfish, later known as Samuel Goldwyn.
In 1914, both Feature Play and Famous Players released their films through a start-up company, Paramount Pictures Corporation, organised early that year by a Utah theatre owner, William Hodkinson, who had bought and merged several smaller firms.
In 1916, Zukor manoeuvred a three-way merger of his Famous Players, with Feature Play and Paramount, buying Hodkinson out of Paramount, and creating the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.
The name would stick until in 1927, when the corporation donned a new name, i.e. Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation.
Three years later, because of the importance of the Publix Theatres Corporation – also started by Zukor – the corporation became the Paramount Publix Corporation.
This corporation didn’t last long, however, as it went bankrupt in 1935. After much reorganisation, the corporation renamed itself Paramount Pictures, Inc. which led to the company coming out of debt.
Since then, the only major changes to the company have been the logo which has changed nearly 10 times since 1914.
The 20 stars that you can see on the logo are in honour of the first 20 ‘movie stars’ who signed with Zukor in 1916.
Paramount has since created countless blockbuster movies that will stand the test of time.
Here are Paramount’s 10 most successful movies of all time, with their gross turnovers, at the worldwide box office:
1. Titanic (1997) – $2 186 772 302
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) – $1 123 794 079
3. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) – $1 104 054 072
4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) – $836 303 693
5. Shrek the Third (2007) – $798 958 162
6. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – $786 636 033
7. Shrek Forever After (2010) – $752 600 867
8. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) – $746 921 274
9. Transformers (2007) – $709 709 780
10. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) – $694 713 380
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at roodepoortrecord@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 955 1130.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to let your voice be heard!
