Warner Bros. Pictures/Summary

Logo descriptions by Jason Jones and Matt Williams

Logo captures by Eric S., Hoa, V of Doom, Logophile, Mr.Logo, naxo-ole and StephenCezar15

Editions by Bob Fish, Shadeed A. Kelly, Logophile, Curiousgeorge60, Chowchillah, and Yoshidude987

Description
Background : Warner Bros. Pictures was originally founded in 1918 by the Warner brothers Harry (1881-1958), Albert (1883-1967), Sam (1887-1927), and Jack L. (1892-1978), Polish-Jewish brothers who emigrated from Belarus to Ontario, Canada, as the third-oldest American movie studio in continuous operation, after Paramount Pictures was founded on May 8, 1912 as "Famous Players Film Corporation", and Universal Studios founded on June 8, 1912. However, Warner Bros. Pictures officially opened its doors on April 4, 1923. In 1967, Warner Bros. Pictures merged with Seven Arts Productions, who renamed it to "Warner Bros.-Seven Arts". In 1969, it was purchased by Kinney National Co., which was later reincorporated as Warner Communications in 1972 when it spun-off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations. Since 1989, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, formed as a merger between the conglomerates Time, Inc. and Warner Communications. In 1992, Time Warner formed "Time Warner Entertainment" by merging all of its entertainment operations for the first time. Internet giant AOL merged with Time Warner in January 2001, renaming the company as AOL Time Warner, but in summer 2003, the conglomerate name was reverted back to Time Warner (often with no space in between the words) due to lawsuits and a $99 million loss. Today, with the exceptions of some films WB merely distributed, such as Sayonara (currently owned by the estate of the producer), Moby Dick (currently owned by MGM), Rope (currently owned by Universal Studios) and Hondo (owned by Batjac Productions), the pre-1950 catalog is held by Turner Entertainment Co., but the WB films owned by Turner are distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. after Time Warner's acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System in October 1996.

=== 1st Logo (September 23, 1923-August 30, 1929) ===

Nicknames : "CGI Shield", "Shield in the Sky II", "WB Shield VIII", "CGI WB Shield", "75 Years of Warner Bros."

Logo : A picture of the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, CA is seen with a gold tint. The picture "ripples" slowly for a bit and then rotates, revealing that it is the WB shield, redone in CGI and reflecting the studio. The cloud background is more computer generated. The sheild rotates towards us and zooms out to its usual position, with the byline fading in underneath it.

Trivia : This logo was created by Intralink Film Graphic Design.

Bylines :
 * January 16, 1998 - January 19, 2001: "A TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY"
 * February 2, 2001 - September 12, 2003: "An AOL Time Warner Company"
 * November 5 - December 5, 2003: "A Time Warner Company"
 * December 12, 2003 - June 15, 2018: "A TimeWarner Company" (with "TimeWarner" in its corporate font)
 * July 27, 2018 - present: "A WARNERMEDIA Company" (with "WARNERMEDIA" in its own logo font)

Variants :
 * January 16-December 18, 1998: For this logo's first year, when the shield is zooming out to a more further position, "75" and "YEARS" appear from behind the shield and move away to surround it. "Entertaining The World" fades in underneath followed by the Time Warner Entertainment byline in white and in a different typeface. Also, the background is slightly enhanced, and the shield has slightly different lighting. There is also a rare variant for this logo's first year, where the banner only reads "WARNER BROS." instead of "WARNER BROS. PICTURES".
 * A somewhat enhanced WB shield in 3D was seen on IMAX documentaries and some features. The animation revealing the shield is quicker, the flash reflection on the banner when the shield is revealed is not as bright, the inside of the shield is a brighter blue, the banner around the shield is shinier, the cloud background is further back, and the shield zooms out further more.
 * Starting with Dolphin Tale, the shield is sleeker, the banner is shinier, the byline is orange-yellow, and the animation revealing the shield is enhanced.

Closing Variants :
 * 1998-January 19, 2001, March 5, 2004: Same as the previous logo.
 * February 2, 2001- : This closing logo features the 1984 shield with the banner inscription updated to match that of the current opening logo; the words "Distributed by" appear over the shield with the URL address underneath the byline. This is pretty much a modified version of the 2001 Warner Bros. Television logo.
 * A scope version of the closing logo has a much zoomed out shield, much like the IMAX variant. This was spotted on We Are Marshall.

FX/SFX : CGI.

Music/Sounds :
 * January 16-December 18, 1998: The original 75th Anniversary version of this logo used a wind-blowing chime tune.
 * February 12, 1999- : An 8-note piano tune that builds into a powerful, moving fanfare, based on the theme from Casablanca, "As Time Goes By".
 * In other cases, it uses the opening theme of the movie from a soundtrack or silence.

Music/Sounds Variants :
 * On current prints and HBO airings of The Negotiator, the 2003 version uses the wind-blowing chime fanfare from the original 75th Anniversary version.
 * On current prints of Innerspace and Caddyshack II, this plastered the Warner Communications version of the previous shield, but kept the horn fanfare.

Availability : Very common. It's seen on most WB films from 1998 onward, starting with Fallen. Several classic films, including the first two Lethal Weapon films (current prints of Lethal Weapon 3 still retain the Time Warner variant of the 1984 logo), Superman II, The Exorcist, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (though the "Big W" has been retained on the original 1997 DVD release), The Lost Boys, Blazing Saddles, All the President's Men, Return of the Living Dead Part II, and current prints of the National Lampoon's Vacation series (with the exception of European Vacation) have had their old logos plastered with this one in lieu of the "Shield of Staleness", though this one is mainly found on the most recent releases. The 75th Anniversary variant can be found on the aforementioned movies above. In most cases, the logo uses music, especially post-2001 when the AOL Time Warner byline version was used. The one with the AOL Time Warner byline can be found on pre-2003 films like Exit Wounds, Scooby-Doo, and The Powerpuff Girls Movie, among others. The WarnerMedia byline version first appeared on the teaser trailer for Aquaman, and made its first official appearance on Teen Titans Go! To the Movies; the TimeWarner byline made its last appearance at the end of the IMAX re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey. May or may not be plastered by the Toho logo on Japanese prints of Godzilla.

Editor's Note : It's held up remarkably well over the past twenty-one years it's been used.

Copyright Stamps
Here is some information about the copyright stamps on the Warner Bros. films:
 * 1923-1967: Copyright © by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.


 * 1934-1936: Copyright © by Warner Bros. Productions Corp.


 * 1926-1960 :Copyright © by The Vitaphone Corp. (short subjects only)


 * 1967-1970: Copyright © by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, Inc.


 * 1970-1992: Copyright © by Warner Bros., Inc.


 * 1992-2003: Copyright © by Warner Bros.

Click here for logo variations.
 * 2003-: Copyright © by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.