Wolff Studios
|
| Wolff Studios | |
|---|---|
| Wolf Studios Logo | |
| Type | Film production |
| Slogan | |
| Founded | 1915 |
| Location | New Amsterdam, New Castreleon, NAL-SLC |
| Key people | Stacey Schneider, CEO |
| Employees | {{{num_employees}}} |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Products | Cinema and Television |
| Revenue | |
Wolff Studios is one of the major motion picture studios in the NAL as of 2010. Headquartered in the Centennial Park area of Manhattan, New Amsterdam, most of its film lots and studios are located in nearby Breuckelen. It was founded as the Wolff Film Corporation in 1915 by Gwilim (Wilhelm) Wolff, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant to the NAL, by merging two companies he had established in 1913: Greater New Amsterdam Film Rentals, a distribution firm; and Wolff Bureau Attracties Compagnie, a production company. This merger of a distribution and a production company was an early example of vertical integration. Only a year before, the latter company had distributed Silas McKay's groundbreaking cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur (Geertje de Dinosauriër in Dutch.)
Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Wolff concentrated on acquiring and building theatres; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee, Oxbridge, but in 1917 Gwilim Wolff moved the studios to Breuckelen to take advantage of elevated rail connections between Breuckelen and Manhattan. In addition, Wolff purchased the failing Selig Polyscope Company based in Chicago and began exploring setting up studios in Atlanta, Jacobia for filming during the winter months.
With the introduction of sound technologies, Wolff moved to acquire the rights to sound-on-film processing.
| This article is source material
|
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, with hyphen, from 1935 to 1985), also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios as of 2010[update]. Located in the Century City area of Atlanta, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch.
The Fox Film Corporation was formed in 1915 by the theater "chain" pioneer Gwilliam Wolf, who formed Wolf Film Corporation by merging two companies he had established in 1913: Greater New Amsterdam Film Rental, a distribution firm, which was part of the Independents; and Wolf Office Attractions Company, a production company. This merging of a distribution company and a production company was an early example of vertical integration. Only a year before, the latter company had distributed Winsor McCay's groundbreaking cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur.
Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Wolf concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee, New Mersey, but in 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood, California to oversee the studio's West Coast production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for film making. Fox had purchased the Edendale studio of the failing Selig Polyscope Company, which had been making movies in Los Angeles since 1909 and was the first motion picture studio in the city.
With the introduction of sound technologies, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a sound-on-film process. In the years 1925-26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of Freeman Harrison Owens, the U.S. rights to the Tri-Ergon system invented by three German inventors, and the work of Theodore Case. This resulted in the Movietone sound system later known as "Fox Movietone". Later that year, the company began offering films with a music-and-effects track, and the following year Fox began the weekly Fox Movietone News feature, which ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired 300 acres (1.2 km2) in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City", the best-equipped studio of its time.
When rival Marcus Loew died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew family's holdings. Loew's Inc. controlled more than 200 theaters as well as the MGM studio (whose films are currently distributed internationally by Fox). When the family agreed to the sale, the merger of Fox and Loew's Inc. was announced in 1929. But MGM studio-boss Louis B. Mayer, not included in the deal, fought back. Using political connections, Mayer called on the Justice Department's anti-trust unit to block the merger. Fortunately for Mayer, Fox was badly injured in a car crash in the summer of 1929, and by the time he recovered he had lost most of his fortune in the fall 1929 stock market crash, putting an end to the Loew's merger.
Over-extended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire and ended up in jail. Fox Film, with more than 500 theatres, was placed in receivership. A bank-mandated reorganization propped the company up for a time, but it was clear a merger was the only way Fox Film could survive. Under the new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began negotiating with the upstart but powerful independent Twentieth Century Pictures in the early spring of 1935.
