why are hollywood movies produced by more than one production houses?

Question

likewise most begin with showcase of columbia pictures,warner brothers,village roadshow productions,24th century fox,
etc more than one at a time ?

Answer 1

There's a difference between a production company and a movie studio.

There are six major Hollywood movie studios - you've definitely heard of them: Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox, Paramount and Sony (which is the parent company of Columbia, MGM, United Artists).

Most of these studios have been around in some form since the early days of Hollywood. At times when other studios went under, they were incorporated into the ones that exist now. All of these studios have a big lot in the L.A. area, with a security guard at the gate and soundstages for filming and offices for executives and sometimes even the back-lot with easily used permanent sets, like a city block.

Studios are also responsible for the marketing and distribution of films - and have departments dedicated to this work, such as posters, trailers, making prints of the film, etc.

Things have changed since the old days, though, when studio heads ran everything, and had actors, writers and directors all under exclusive contract. Now it's like the studios hire these people on a freelance or short-term contract basis.

Most studios do not directly employ the people who come up with movie ideas - they employ the people who make decisions about whether or not to invest money into these ideas.

What studios do is have contracts with production companies, who come up with ideas for movies and take them to the studio executives for the "green light."

Production companies are usually started by a producer, a director, or an actor, or any of those in combination. Most successful actors have their own production companies now since it allows them to search actively for new projects for themselves AND get a cut of the eventual profits by being producers on the film.

Production companies usually sign an exclusive contract or a "first look deal" with one studio. That means whatever you come up with, you let that studio get the first chance to say "yes" or "no." Sometimes there'll be a "second look deal" with another studio who gets a second shot. If the first look ends in a "no" then often the company is free to shop the project around to other studios.

Studios provide the production companies with their operating costs, usually, and sometimes office space too, and then expect to recoup that money from the profits of films made. Typically, a company is expected to bring, say, 2 films to the studio each year to try to make them. They don't always get made, but that's the expected output for the studio's overhead costs.

So in the opening credits when you see "Village Roadshow" and "Warner Brothers" - Village Roadshow is the production company. They found the script, found actors and a director, and ushered the movie through the development and production phases. Warner Bros is the studio - they put up the money and then marketed and distributed the finished product.

When you see the name of two studios - Fox and Warners, or Paramount and Universal, for example - that means that one studio wasn't willing to shoulder the entire budget of the film. But they liked the idea enough to try to get it made by finding another studio to share in the funding, and the profits.

So - for instance - the productions credits on "Titanic" are for Lightstorm (James Cameron's production company), and both the 20th Century Fox and Paramount studios, who shared the films huge budget - and even huger profits.

Answer 2

There are two scenarios here. First, most movies are produced in a series of steps. A screenwriter will write a script, and someone will buy the rights to it ("option the script"). If the person who initially gets the rights has a production company (which can be anything from one person to a whole team) of their own, there's your first credit. If they're a smaller company, they may shop the script around to a larger production house to help get the script to a studio. There's your second credit. This process repeats until the project reaches a point where all funding and development is complete and the film is ready to start production. Each company in the chain will have their own credit.

The other scenario is what Cookie Cutter describes. In the case of a film that needs a huge budget a single studio may not want (or be able) to cover the costs. In that case they may offer another studio a percentage of the profits if they can convince them the film is a likely hit. The same thing can happen on an indie film that's low-budget, but is being produced by a smaller studio that doesn't have the enormous resources of a major house.

Answer 3

Hollywood Production Houses

Answer 4

They do this to split the cost, making the risk for each company lower than if they had produced it alone. They also get to split the profits. :-)