Warner Village Cinemas

Background: Warner Village Cinemas was a European multiplex cinema chain that combined Warner Bros. Cinemas with Village Roadshow Pictures. Their locations will primarily based in the United Kingdom, with other locations in countries like Germany and Italy. The chain was created in 1996 and expanded for several years, but in the 2000s, other cinema chains bought and re-branded their locations, including Vue Cinemas.

Warner Bros. Cinemas

1st Logo

(Early 90s)

Nicknames: 100 Years, Celebrating 100 Years

Logo: We move through a mechanical door into a futuristic hallway with several doors and screens with gold/bronze outlines that display clips from old movies. We eventually enter one of the doorways on the right into a room with a filmstrip on the bottom, several small filmstrips showing more movie clips, and a distorted blue background. Soon after we have entered the room, we see three phrases formed one-by-one: "Celebrating 100 years of", "MOTION PICTURE ENTERTAINMENT Excellence", and "NOBODY DOES IT BETTER". The text is in different fonts and colors, and shines after one phrase has appeared. We then zoom out another mechanical door onto a mechanical roof against a dark cloudy sky, where a robotic arm grabs a plate that comes out of the door; on top of the plate are refreshments that have Looney Tunes characters on them. We zoom past the arm and refreshments to see a bucket carrying a red-orange chemical and dropping it into a container. The container's lid is twisted slightly and opens up to reveal the WB shield with the banner saying "WARNER BROS. CINEMAS". The camera zooms up to the shield as the mechanical roof disappears, leaving the shield, the cloudy sky, and several spotlights behind the shield. After a few seconds, the logo fades out. The entire logo lasts for approximately 1 minute.

FX/SFX: Everything in the logo, which is fairly decent computer animation for the 1990s.

Music/Sounds: A synth orchestra piece that gets bigger and more bombastic as the logo progresses. An electronic drumbeat is heard at the beginning and end of the logo. Several sound effects are heard like chimes, whooshes, and robotic/mechanical sounds.

Availability: Extinct. Most likely seen in the early-to-mid 90s and/or when the cinema chain celebrated 100 years of cinema.

Scare Factor: TBA

2nd Logo

(Early 90s)

Logo: On a black background, the WB shield banner with the text "Warner Bros. Cinemas" on it appears from the bottom of the screen and turns to face us. The main part of the shield comes down from the top of the screen, and as it does so, we can see a white light shining onto the shield. The banner goes into its proper place around the shield as the camera moves away to make room for the stacked words "FEATURE PRESENTATION" in gold, which flips into view from behind the shield and settles underneath it. The camera then zooms toward "FEATURE PRESENTATION", and moves in between the two words and past them.

FX/SFX: The computer-animated shield, banner, and text moving.

Cheesy Factor: The computer animation and music seem simple, cheap and dated, especially when compared to the 1st logo. However, the animation was probably more impressive in the 90s.

Music/Sounds: A synthesized brass fanfare.

Availability: Extinct. Most likely seen in the early-to-mid 90s.

Scare Factor: TBA _____________________________________________________________________________________

Warner Village Cinemas

1st Logo

(Mid 90s)

Nickname: Into The New Millenium

Logo: On a moving space background with stars and purple mist, we see the sun with a lens flare, a hand, and a rotating blue globe with gold continents and white latitude/longitude lines; the globe is levitating over the hand and is projecting a white star-like shape onto the hand. The camera zooms into the globe as several filmstrips encircle the globe. Most of the filmstrips disappear except for three of them, which land onto the United Kingdom, Germany (Deutschland) and Italy (Italia), respectively; each filmstrip is accompanied by silver text and the flag of the nation that a filmstrip lands on. The WB shield without the banner then rotates around the globe to face us as the globe moves off-screen. The shield moves to the left to make room for the Village Roadshow "V" on the right, and the text "WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS" to wipe in; WARNER VILLAGE is in their companies' respective fonts, while CINEMAS is white and smaller. As this is happening, a pink/white light appears below the logo with a purple spiraling filmstrip, and 4 white lights swirling around it. The logo and filmstrip zoom past us as the light and purple mist disappear, and the moving background slowly stops. Two metal M's form, which make room for smaller text and a line to create the phrase:

INTO THE NEW MILLENIUM

The text is then blown to pieces by an explosion, and when the smoke clears, we see Bugs Bunny in a basketball jersey reminiscent of the jersey from Space Jam, and spinning the globe from earlier on his finger like a basketball. The text "Now Our Feature Presentation" in blue and in script appears below Bugs' face as a Looney-Tunes-esque circle closes in on his head. He winks before the circle closes, and the blue text becomes blue mist, which zooms past us. The entire logo lasts for approximately 50 seconds.

FX/SFX: Everything in the logo, which is a mix of computer animation and 2D animation. Impressive animation for the time period, and some of the animation somewhat holds up today, even if it's somewhat dated.

Cheesy Factor: The sun and lens flare suddenly disappear instead of simply moving off-screen or fading out. Also, the sun briefly appears before the third filmstrip lands on Italy with its silver text and flag.

Music/Sounds: A soothing synth tune for most of the logo, accompanied by a bass drum, cymbal rolls, and bell chimes up to the point where the shield appears. A synth horn/woodwind melody that is somewhat reminiscent of the ending melody from the first "Warner Bros. Cinemas" logo, accompanied by a high-pitched synth string chord and synth bells. A strange spaceship-like humming noise is heard as the logo and filmstrip spiral zoom past us. Metal noises and electric sounds are heard as "INTO THE NEW MILLENIUM" forms, followed by an explosion. When Bugs Bunny is on screen, a remix of "Merrily We Roll Along" is heard with cartoony sound effects, and a whoosh when the blue text zooms past us.

Availability: Extinct. Most likely seen between the mid 90s and the 2000s.

Scare Factor: Low to medium, especially at the end with the explosion.

2nd Logo

(Mid 90s)

Logo: This short logo is just recycled animation from the 1st logo on a black background. The WB shield without the banner moves to the left as the Village Roadshow "V" appears from behind it and moves to the right. In between the two company logos, the text "WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS", in the same fonts, colors and sizes as before, wipe in.

FX/SFX/Cheesy Factor: The company logos moving into place and the text wiping in, which is recycled from the 1st logo. However, there is a possibility that the animation was taken from this logo for the 1st logo rather than vice-versa. Also, the upper-right corner of the Village Roadshow "V" suddenly appears as it comes out from behind the WB shield instead of completely coming out from the shield.

Music: TBA

Availability: Extinct. Seen before the theater policy after the cinema chains were joined together.

Scare Factor: Low.

3rd Logo

(2000s)

Nickname: Millenium

Logo: Over a sunset background, there are 4 cranes with cameramen on them. We zoom past them as four searchlights (a la 20th Century Fox) emit from the city in the background. We then fade into more searchlights that start to emit as well. The camera starts panning down facing upward where a rollercoaster-like structure builds itself into a swirl where a fireball shoots up from behind. The camera then starts to go zooming up at a sonic-boom type of speed where the searchlights straightened themselves up and make a tunnel. During the tunnel zoom, some Looney Tunes countdown leaders start to play around the tunnel. As soon as the countdown leaders get to 1, we see the Warner Bros. shield and Village Roadshow logo. The fireball hits the shield where it explodes into many pieces of popcorn. We zoom back into place as the logos go from left to right respectively. The text "WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS," wipes in while the curtains open. When the curtains do, Bugs Bunny appears from behind them. He then zooms away. Then the Looney Toons characters come down from a hanging platform where they build the words "e adesso il film di oggi" (which translates into English as "and now the movie today"). The entire logo lasts for approximately 39 seconds.

Variant: A version where the Village Roadshow logo is replaced by the Lusomundo Cinemas logo supposedly exists.

FX/SFX: The searchlights, the fireball, and the countdown leaders. Better animation than the previous logos which holds up well to this day.

Music/Sounds: A suspenseful orchestral piece, which, at the end of the logo, turns into cartoon music (which is most likely from Looney Tunes).

Availability: Extinct, as by this point, the cinemas were bought by Vue and virtually all of the Warner Village Cinemas were being rebranded as such.

Scare Factor: Low to medium. The darkness may bother some, but other than that, it's a beautifully crafted logo.