Unless if you’ve been living under a rock, you know about Warner Bros. The film company was founded in 1923 when movies were just being developed and has since expanded to become one of the top 10 film studios in the world.
More than likely, no matter what era you grew up in, Warner Bros was a part of your childhood and adulthood. The genres include adult horror such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and family fare such as the Harry Potter film franchise, which launched in 2001. And even if Warner Bros didn’t make every movie or show, they do seem to buy and own them all.
A major example of this expansion is the Scooby-Doo franchise. Warner Bros bought the rights to Scooby-Doo in 1996 from its original studio, Hanna-Barbera. This insistence in collecting every successful film and movie is part of what has allowed Warner Bros to boom in so much over the past century.
Sure, it isn’t quite up to the level of Disney’s brand, but Warner Bros has just as much of a spread over the film industry. On the list of 100 top Warner Bros’ movies from Rotten Tomatoes, there are many familiar and internationally renowned movies that people usually don’t even realize are owned by Warner Bros.
Also contributing to Warner Bros’ success is the sheer amount of movies they release in a single year. For 2023, Barbie, Dune Part Two, and Evil Dead Rising are only a few out of the several that will be — or already have been — released this year.
And even during a less-productive year, such as 2022, the company capitalizes on using popular franchises and actors for the movies they manage. Last year, The Batman was centered around Batman, a very beloved comic character, and starred Robert Pattinson. Black Adam starred Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. And Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore profits off of Harry Potter’s sustained and large popularity.
At the end of 2022, Warner Bros’ gross profit was $4.054 billion dollars, which was a huge success, according to Macrotrends.
But companies that experience great success tend to become lazier with their products, as shown by Disney. In comparison, Disney had many impressive and entertaining films up to around the 2010s. But then Disney began to buy more film companies such as Marvel Entertainment or Lucasfilm. And, as any genuine Disney fan knows, the movies have only gone downhill from there.
Disney, in some ways, owns the entire moviemaking industry with only a few competitors such as Warner Bros left standing. And, debatably, Disney has gone rotten — the company now focuses more on politicization rather than entertaining the audience, and although the theater seats still fill up in anticipation they release something good, that can only last for so long.
Meanwhile, yes, Warner Bros has had their flumps. However, they pick and choose what is successful and what the viewers want to see. A franchise such as Scooby-Doo has a timeless quality to it, and even after their purchase of the original company, they still released fantastic movies such as Scooby-Doo! Where’s My Mummy? Or Scoboy-Doo! WrestleMania.
Unlike Disney, Warner Bros continued to stay true to the original magic of the various companies. But when it comes to Disney, nearly everyone agrees that the newer Star Wars films don’t even remotely chalk up to the originals, and ever since Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment, nothing has seemingly trumped the original Iron Man movies.
Warner Bros may not be as large-and-in-charge as Disney, but they have still acquired an ageless audience and lots of profit from their consistent innovations in producing the types of movies people want to see. That was the original purpose when the company was first founded, so they deserve some applause for maintaining the ars gratia artis, or art for art’s sake.
