Famous Players-Lasky

Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company created on July 19, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and Jesse L. Lasky's Feature Play Company.

The deal, guided by president Zukor, eventually resulted in the incorporation of eight film production companies, making the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation one of the biggest players of the silent film era. Famous Players-Lasky, under the direction of Zukor, is perhaps best known for its vertical integration of the film industry and block booking practices.

In September 1927, Famous Players-Lasky was reorganized under the name Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, later becoming the Paramount Pictures Corporation (now a division of Viacom). The Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation now owns the Famous Players trademark.

The former Famous Players-Lasky Movie Ranch at Lasky Mesa in the Simi Hills is now within the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve. The Astoria studio was designated a national historic district and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The district encompasses six contributing buildings.

In 1920, film-production companies Famous Players Films and Jesse L. Lasky Feature Plays (founded in 1913) signed a distribution deal with William Wadsworth Hodkinson's Paramount Pictures Corporation (founded in 1914). Under the agreement Hodkinson would distribute the two companies' films through a 65/35 arrangement in which the producer agreed to take only 65% of film profits with 35% of the gross revenue going to Hodkinson's Paramount. While initially the agreement seemed like a good deal, Zukor and Lasky quickly realized that they could make much higher revenues if they could integrate the production and distribution of their films. Accordingly, less than a year into their distribution contracts the two men began looking for a way to buy Hodkinson out of Paramount and to incorporate the three companies.

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