Original subtitles

Attica!

Warner Bros. was always pushing the boundaries.

They were always a studio

that took risks.

It's part of the DNA of this place.

Warner Bros. was known

at that point for how

they treated their stars.

And they were really good to directors.

We became part of the family that way.

Like a Warner Bros. family.

During the creative renaissance of the '70s

Warner Bros. provided a safe haven for storytellers.

Maybe we can cut a deal.

In the coming age of blockbusters and big business

it was a family worth fighting for.

Warner Bros. had a very good system.

They had good people.

They worked very hard to make you happy too.

Never rat on your friends

and always keep your mouth shut.

There's no denying the fact

that it's an industry and a business

but there was a little bit

more humanity at Warner Bros.

Deal.

In order for any business

to be successful, you have to lead.

You're gonna work harder

than you ever worked before.

You have to have the courage to invest

in stories that have never been told before.

Amid corporate turmoil

Warner Bros. needed to fortify its studio machinery

and chase the biggest, boldest ideas

to satisfy audience demand.

It's just all about epic filmmaking

and giant franchisable movies.

You never know if you got a hit.

Meow.

And you're ready to die for me?

It's the job.

Going to the theater, it felt like

the whole world sort of descending

into this dark room

to watch this vision.

Hey, Data, where are you going?

- I'm setting booty traps. - You mean booby traps.

That's what I said. Booby traps! Be quiet.

My childhood is here.

That's what's so great about these movies

is I don't think it would have been

as good as it was had we not had fun.

We were like a family back then.

It's bigger than an industry.

It's an incredibly powerful force

to make art that speaks to the world.

The truth often poses a threat to power

and one often has to fight power

at great risk to themselves.

There's such a long line of people

who have made just some

of their best films at Warner Bros.

I told you I can only show you the door.

You have to walk through it.

In 1983

Warner Communications suffered a $500-million loss

from the Atari collapse.

To fend off corporate raiders who prey on company debt

Steve Ross sacrificed valuable assets

including MTV.

More regrettably, he laid off staff.

To safeguard against future catastrophe

Ross siloed the business units into separate divisions.

But to regain shareholder confidence, he needed commercial hits

from his crown jewel, the movie studio.

The key to our industry

and maybe to most industries

is having good people and good people

can make anything happen.

Having the relationships

all the way through with the artists is very important to us

and creating an ambience

a creative atmosphere where people want to work.

From the ashes of Atari's ruins

rose a friendship between Ross and Steven Spielberg.

The name of Hollywood's hottest blockbuster director

attached to Warner Bros.

could turn their fortunes around.

Ross won him over with a promise

make the films you want to make.

Once Steven Spielberg

finds something he likes

and he wants to make it

it's hard to say no.

Gremlins is a picture

about something that probably

could never happen in real life.

Gremlin. What a fairy tale.

Well, I think the name Gremlins

caught Spielberg's eye

because Steven being a fan of old Warner Bros. cartoons...

There is a cartoon...

I think it's a Bugs Bunny cartoon

with gremlins.

Could that have been a...

Gremlin?

I probably saw it as a kid, forgot about it.

So it was a subconscious thing.

And then I created a whole mythology around what gremlins were.

And probably the most important thing

don't ever feed him after midnight.

Immediately, once we started Gremlins

Steven and I were already into the writing of Goonies.

Ready and shoot it.

Number one.

The films I had set out to make

Dog Day Afternoon

and all of those types of films

I was gonna employ what I had learned

from those films in the dialogue

making sure that they were always speaking over each other

that they were very naturalistic, that they were saying things

that felt very real from a kid.

- That's it, guys. - What's it?

- What's it? - There are three rocks out there.

- Take a look. One, two, three. - You're right.

- Out there. Okay. - Let's go get 'em.

Let's go get 'em!

The Goonies is about seven outcasts

who are on the verge of losing their homes

and they stumble upon a pirate ship.

That takes them on the greatest adventure of their life.

In fact, the famous Stage 16

is where we built that full-size pirate ship.

It's a Steven Spielberg-produced movie

with Dick Donner at the helm.

I think the uniquest part of working with this many kids in the film

is that every night

I'm contemplating suicide.

I think we all drove him crazy 'cause we're just so loud.

You know, constantly fighting and arguing.

We would ride bikes on the Warner Bros. backlot

just going around from soundstage to soundstages

knocking on doors

messing up people's shots

and we'd hear the AD go

"Oh, my God, what are you guys doing here?" You know?

And we're just telling them, "We're the Goonies."

Steven and Dick, they were just like this great father figure.

I didn't see them as the most successful filmmakers of all time.

He allowed us to be kids, to be ourselves and not actors.

Everywhere I go

people of all colors, of all ages

have come up to me

and told me how much they love The Goonies.

Goonies never say die.

It doesn't get old.

With Gremlins and Goonies

Spielberg re-energized Warner Bros.

with a sense of adventure and box office gold.

But in addition to making money

Steve Ross sought projects that achieved cultural capital.

That same year, music mogul, Quincy Jones

also Ross's dear friend

urged Spielberg to direct an adaptation

of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel

The Color Purple.

Totally uncharacteristic film

for any studio

and another characteristic gamble

on the part of Warner Bros. to say

"Yeah, this is something

that we're gonna invest

a significant amount of money in.

This is a blockbuster film director

and we're gonna cast unknowns in the key roles."

Whoopi Goldberg's first film.

Oprah Winfrey's first film.

It's been over 35 years, and I still can tear up talking about it

'cause I never wanted anything

as much as I wanted to be

in The Color Purple.

The arc of Celie's story

how she withstood the abuse

having the world look at you, literally, and say

"You sure is ugly."

And in the midst of that

find a way to believe in herself.

You told Harpo to beat me!

Coming from a world of abuse myself, so when I say

all my life I had to fight.

That is part of my story.

There is a definitive following of women

specifically black women

who walked out of the theater

who felt a little more emboldened themselves

a little more expanded.

I'll knock you up and...

Everything you done to me...

you already done to you.

The Color Purple is one of those movies

people seem to be talking about everywhere

and it's a movie that some people are getting upset about.

Warner Bros., and Steven Spielberg

and Quincy Jones, and Alice Walker

all took a lot of heat.

Black organizations in particular were criticizing it

because they thought it was detrimental

to the images of black men.

They need to change it.

If that's the way all black men supposed to be, it's not true.

The rise of, you know, domestic violence is real

in the black community and every other community.

So I was happy that the studio stood by it.

The Color Purple also signaled Spielberg's evolution

into a director of more serious material.

- Jimmy! - Mama!

I don't think I could have made

either Empire of the Sun

or Schindler's List

without the first big

for me, stepping stone

of Color Purple.

For decades to come

the kinship between Warner Bros.

and Spielberg only deepened.

Whether as a producer or director

he supplied the studio with a variety of crowd pleasers.

1985 brought another harbinger of good fortune.

An unlikely hero from Warner Bros.' own backyard.

It was strange growing up in Burbank because the studios

were so close, yet so far away.

Kind of magical, impenetrable walls

you know, that you drive by.

We used to kind of try to sneak into the studios

which is not very easy to do.

Excuse me, sir. Do you have a pass?

Oh, no, I'm sorry. You can't enter without a pass, sir.

So the other fellow said

"What do you think I got down here? A duck?"

A duck.

I started out as an animator

and did a couple of short films

which was the thing that probably helped me to get my first feature

Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Warner Bros. has one of the best backlots.

It was like a playground.

What more fun could you have trashing the Warner Bros. backlot?

It was an era where things could still surprise people.

You know, to kind of come out of left field a little bit.

Beetlejuice.

It's showtime.

And I think that happened with Beetlejuice.

The people really didn't know what it was

and it could have gone either way.

It felt like making a Warner Bros. cartoon in a funny way.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

Let's go, Barbara.

Burton's lower-budget escapades

turned into surprise hits at just the right moment.

Time and Warner executives have endorsed

the new law of survival in the media universe.

We are moving toward a handful

six, 12 companies controlling information flow in the free world.

Still mired in the financial fallout caused by Atari

Steve Ross staked everything on a potential merger

with the publishing powerhouse, Time Inc.

As negotiations plodded along for over two years

neither side knew who would have the upper hand.

At the same time, Bob Daly and Terry Semel

were searching for a new kind of blockbuster

to flex the studio's muscle

and called upon a hero from its DC pantheon.

It had to be a different type of Batman

and we worked on it for a decade.

But nothing ever materialized

until we decided to go

with Tim Burton to direct it.

You're not exactly normal, are you?

It's not exactly a normal world, is it?

In the post-studio system

every film has become a gamble.

So making a film of the comic strip character, Batman

was a risk.

Entrusting it to Tim Burton who was still a fledgling director

was another risk.

Obviously, the first really big film I did

in terms of a budget and awareness

and I felt the pressure of it.

- Sixty-seven, take one. - Action.

And then casting Michael Keaton

who'd made his name doing comedy, was yet another risk

that provoked cries of outrage from fans.

Batman was the polar opposite of Superman.

The aspirational hero beloved by all.

Burton's Caped Crusader

masked a deeply flawed man.

I love the idea of making a darker, Jekyll and Hyde nature of it.

We're kind of charting new territory.

You make the movie, you keep your fingers crossed

and then you have to come up with a good marketing campaign.

Daly and Semel devised a strategy

that signaled a seismic event.

One that couldn't be missed.

Batman was always so very important for one reason.

We were in the middle of our merger agreement with Time.

The film's performance

could radically shape the outcome of the merger.

All eyes were on Batman.

Wait till they get a load of me.

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars turned out for the premiere

giving the event the glitter of vintage Tinseltown.

There's no other way of putting it.

This evening, Los Angeles has gone bats.

I don't think you could have been prepared for this.

I'm sure they were imagining

a good box office.

But to this extent?

Batman shattered opening weekend records.

Became the year's highest-grossing film

and the studio's biggest box office success to date.

The studio boss is a very rich and happy man.

I loved, loved every minute of it.

Batman had a huge influence on me.

It was the first time that I felt like

the story wasn't just on the screen

but also, like, came home with us.

Batmania ignited the sale

of more than 500 million dollars' worth of merchandise.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

We got the toys, the soundtrack

and to be a part of a pop cultural moment

where everybody had to show up.

Warner Bros. had revolutionized the way films were marketed.

Which also promoted synergy between the divisions of the company.

Remember the deal with Time is they bought us.

I'm Batman.

But once we hit Batman, there was no question who should run the place.

Steve Ross emerged the victor.

He had orchestrated the deal of the decade

and transformed Warner Bros.

into a colossal force atop the entertainment world.

I think we had a real advantage over many of our competitors

and that is we're a stable company.

We could win and lose.

So sometimes we could lose

but we would not go away.

One after the other

Warner Bros. churned out

sequels to Batman.

Riddle me this.

Even when the quality slumped

event movies minted money.

And validated the franchise mindset.

Hollywood only hungered for more.

Do you really wanna jump?

Do you wanna?

Well, then, that's fine with me. Come on.

Box office ticket sales boomed yet again

when director, Richard Donner

and action producer, Joel Silver

turned Lethal Weapon into its own franchise.

I feel torn about it, because, on the one hand

I think that it paved the way

for a new genre of filmmaking

which were tentpoles.

On the other hand, sadly

our industry often all scuttles after

only one thing at the same time.

Studios are addicted to that success

and that success only often.

It's like a gold rush.

They can't help but go for the one sure thing.

But Daly and Semel took their winnings on safer bets

to bankroll their pursuit of long shots.

Films that traded popcorn entertainment

for prestige.

I've always known I was born

to dominate your sex

and avenge my own.

And the Oscar goes to...

Dangerous Liaisons.

You don't know what you want.

One minute you like me, and the next, you don't.

One minute you're ashamed to be seen with me

and the next, you think I'm the best thing that ever happened to you.

- Geena Davis. - The Accidental Tourist.

You're speeding. I can see it.

No, Miss Daisy, no. We're only doing

about 19 miles an hour.

I like to go under the speed limit.

We're hardly movin'.

Might as well walk to the Piggly Wiggly.

I'm pleased with my association

with Warner Bros.

They didn't spend much money making Driving Miss Daisy

but they spent a lot promoting it.

And the Oscar goes to...

Driving Miss Daisy.

Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck.

Lauded with accolades and loaded with cash

Warner Bros. found itself firing on all cylinders.

But ever since 1971, the executive team resented

having to share the lot with Columbia Pictures.

The joint venture had long gone sour

and they looked for a way out.

There was a lucky thing that happened a few years later

when our two producers who were on Batman

took the job to help run what was then gonna be called Sony.

Sony, which had recently purchased Columbia

stole Jon Peters and Peter Guber away

from Warner Bros.

in dramatic fashion.

A Hollywood hit and run.

And, of course, they violated their contract with us.

And as a result of that, the two of us together

negotiated for an extraordinary deal

which included a hundred percent of this studio.

Because of this break we got

which was an unbelievable break to let two producers leave

and get $750 million worth of assets

it all worked out nicely.

In 1990

after nearly a 20-year marriage of inconvenience

Columbia Pictures vacated the Burbank lot.

It was time to party.

It's kind of stunning. I expected a little party

you know, in a soundstage.

This is show business personified.

People, company, and now all the families

is under one roof.

And it's called Warner Bros. And it's so exciting.

I got David Wolper to produce it.

We invited a thousand people.

We had a parade. Reagan was here.

All the stars came.

It was the best party I ever attended in my life.

The symbol of the studio has always been

our illuminated landmark water tower.

And tonight, it is our joy to reignite that beacon of light

to let the world know once again

that it is the Warner Bros. Studio.

One, two, three.

The return of the Warner Bros. shield

restored the studio's identity

and would rekindle a connection with its roots.

Ripping a page from the founders' book

Ross, Daly, and Semel next put their chips on a classic Warner gambit.

The wise guy flick.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.

People who ran Warners had a certain understanding

of that kind of culture.

They felt more connected to it in a certain way.

Yeah?

You can certainly draw a through line

of Warner Bros. crime pictures

where you have this rooting interest

that seems incongruous

with a good person.

But this rooting interest in the criminals.

You know, we always called each other goodfellas.

Like you'd say to somebody

"You're gonna like this guy. He's all right.

He's a good fella. He's one of us."

You understand?

It was like a guy telling a story in a street corner.

And that's how I learned

about narrative.

It was how my father told stories.

My mother. My friends.

In this case, we took Nick Pileggi's book, Wise Guy.

We put images to it and the camera moves, music, et cetera.

And make it with an energy level that would just blow the place apart.

But back in July of 1990, it was war zone at a preview.

What's the world coming to?

People were upset because they weren't expecting

that the violence in the film was combined with humor.

I'm funny how? I mean, funny, like, I'm a clown? I amuse you?

I make you laugh? I'm here to fuckin' amuse you?

But Warners released the picture.

Then when it finally came out, people started laughing.

People were reacting. Then we sat up.

"So yeah, that's right."

It was an extraordinary reaction.

Goodfellas reinvented the genre Warner Bros. made famous

and influenced every Mafia picture that followed.

Sixteen years later, Scorsese would return

with another gritty portrait of gangster life.

The Departed examined the perils of power.

And the price of loyalty.

These twin benchmark films were only made possible

under the financial protection of Warner Bros.

And in the early '90s, no one supported the studio family

more than its godfather, Steve Ross.

Steve Ross had a love of this business

but he also had a love

of being around great talent.

And if you worked for Steve

he would love you and you would never wanna leave.

He was the head of the corporation, but he was a mensch.

You would say, "Steve, I need this or that".

Even things like a plane

he'd send you a plane if you asked for it.

Steve Ross taught us to take good care of all those people.

It was one big family, and we were doing everything it took

to keep the family together of great talent.

You know, I came to Warner Bros.

because of Terry Semel and Bob Daly.

And how they treated me.

They believed in relationships.

Long term relationships.

That meant supporting filmmakers

and stars in good times and bad.

It meant if they had one flop

you didn't write them off

and kick them off the lot.

It meant, "We're in it with you for the long haul."

The partner who lasted the longest

and delivered the most

was none other than Clint Eastwood.

My name is Gunnery Sergeant Highway

and I've drunk more beer

and pissed more blood

and banged more quiff

and busted more ass...

than all of you numbnuts put together.

Clint Eastwood deserves anything as far as I'm concerned.

He's the rock of the studio.

In all the movies Clint Eastwood had made at Warner Bros.

he's never gone over budget.

Never gone over budget.

Terry and I visited Clint Eastwood on every single movie

when he was shooting it.

You know, he's the best.

Get the security.

- Call security immediately. - Get security, yeah.

I can't wait to see you in another Western.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Well, we'll do it.

Terry and Bob were terrific.

And they're the ones that gave me

Unforgiven to do.

How 'bout it, Will?

How 'bout what?

How about being my partner?

Daly and Semel encouraged Eastwood

to dust off an old script from 1976.

It was the story of an aging outlaw in the Old West.

But Eastwood never felt old enough to play him.

I read it and I said

"Geez, this is really good. I'd better do this."

Unforgiven rectified the traditional Western.

Eastwood told a grim tale of regret

one where the act of violence harmed even the culprit.

Take a drink, kid.

It wasn't just a routine deal

where the bad guys come over the hill

and the good guy fights him off or whatever.

It had this whole deal of this bad history

and how he was a haunted person.

I've seen the angel of death.

So the hero is everything that isn't heroic.

I don't deserve this.

"Deserve's" got nothing to do with it.

Look down there, look down at him.

Look down there. You can't believe it.

First thing you learn about Clint is he works.

Get him. Action.

He's really on the job.

I don't think he's ever gonna say, "That was great. Let's do one more."

I like working with somebody who's just...

They know what they want. They know when they get it.

And we're moving on.

And when I saw Unforgiven cut together, he'd done it again.

This is really a terrific film.

It's one of those that's gonna last, I think.

You better bury Ned right.

Or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.

Unforgiven showcased Eastwood's ability

to walk the line between the popular and the artistic

which certified his reputation as a master director.

As Eastwood entered the third act of his career with Warner Bros.

he crafted more provocative, critically acclaimed films.

Whether a neo-noir thriller

a World War II epic

or a knockout sports drama...

Eastwood toppled every genre.

It's not about hitting it hard. It's how good you hit it.

That reinvention began in 1992

when Unforgiven rode into the Oscars with nine nominations

including Best Director and Best Picture.

And the Oscar for the Best Picture of 1992 goes to...

Clint Eastwood.

I wanna thank Bob Daly and Terry Semel

the whole executive strata over there.

We lost... Warner Bros. lost

a great friend, Steve Ross, this year.

Steve did get to see this picture

and he predicted this outcome.

So I'll dedicate this to Steve Ross.

Only four months prior, Steve Ross succumbed

to a secret seven-year battle with prostate cancer.

His passing stunned his studio family.

I was shocked, just shocked.

He was one of a kind.

When he died, that was a big loss for the company.

I just remember him being a great boss

because he had confidence.

He trusted you.

He loved people and he loved talent.

He had just a tremendous amount of charisma.

He just knew how to make everybody feel like

this was the greatest place in the world.

I miss him.

When Steve Ross died, I had an unlimited budget

to do anything I wanted to do in honor of Steve Ross.

So I built the Steve Ross Theater.

And I decided while I'm building the theater

let's put a museum in.

In that same spirit

Daly took the opportunity to build a corporate archive

that would restore and showcase

nearly half a century's worth of costumes

props, and mementos.

From then on, Warner Bros. has rallied around every effort

to preserve not only its physical history

but films themselves.

Myself, Spielberg, a number of other people were afraid

that the films themselves would disappear.

Literally disappear.

I feel that the people who made the films

have a responsibility to the rest of the world, really.

They have an obligation to share that for future generations.

For our children.

Warner Bros., of all the studios, has always done a very good job

of protecting their assets

and future-proofing them

and preserving their negatives.

It's a lot of money that has to go into these processes

but they're extraordinarily important.

Films allow us to see ourselves, of course.

See who we've been, how we've evolved.

There may be things we don't like to see about ourselves in the past.

We don't really have a chance to know where we're going

unless we know where the hell we've been.

The studio never lost sight of its moral duty.

Like Harry and Jack Warner, Daly and Semel

chose projects that critiqued

recent American history

on an epic scale.

Films of reckoning.

One of the things Stanley Kubrick would always say is

"If you make a movie that everybody likes, you failed.

Because a great movie has to get under people's skin."

From now on, you will speak only when spoken to.

And the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be "Sir."

Do you maggots understand that?

- Sir, yes, sir. - Sir, yes, sir.

Bullshit. I can't hear you.

Sound off like you got a pair.

- Sir, yes, sir. - Sir, yes, sir.

Stanley Kubrick returned

with a razor-sharp examination of the Vietnam War.

And the wounds that linger.

Kubrick stopped at nothing

to confront the hard truths of human nature.

Private Joker, why did you join my beloved Corps?

Sir, to kill, sir!

- So you're a killer? - Sir, yes, sir!

Let me see your war face.

You don't scare me. Work on it!

For the first three months

we never completed anything

that was on the call sheet

that said what we were going

to film the next day.

Could you stand the way you do with your gun

or simulate the gun?

He said, "Who cares how many takes I do?

Would you ever go up to Picasso and say

"Hey, Pablo, how many strokes in that painting?"

Do something brilliant.

He is who he is. He's an icon.

You have to play by their rules.

John Calley was playing by their rules long before we got there.

You think we could change the rules?

There was no changing the rules.

I remember having conversations with Stanley about Warner Bros.

Terry Semel and Bob Daly.

That they had his back.

It's very important to have producers that will say no.

But producers that will say yes.

Did you try it? Let's give it a crack.

It's... sometimes, it's hard to raise money

and green light a picture

that's going to make people uncomfortable.

People like Hollywood endings.

But he lived in a world where that's not necessarily the truth.

There's an expression they use in combat

where somebody gets a thousand-yard stare.

When you see beyond this life

because you've taken somebody else's life.

When I pull the trigger on that young girl

I wanted the audience to feel Private Joker died.

He was no longer ever going to be

the boy that he was before he pulled the trigger.

I went to Nam as a soldier in '67-8.

And I saw things that just shocked me.

And you see a lot of ugliness in your fellow man.

When you come back from war

you just don't look at people the same way.

You don't relate to them the same way.

You don't have friends. You don't trust anybody.

And then eventually you get to the point

where you don't trust your government anymore.

- From CBS News. - Looking at as the world turns.

In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired

at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.

The first reports say

that President Kennedy

has been seriously wounded by this shooting.

Terry Semel and Bob Daly came after me.

I sat down to dinner with them one night.

And I told them the story of what I wanted to do.

We're going to revisit the events in the beginning

and then as the story goes along, we're gonna show you

what really happened in the last reel.

They killed a president of the United States

and they got away with it.

Stone's pitch was incendiary but timely

marshaling the anger

that gnawed at the country's psyche after Vietnam

Watergate, and Iran-Contra.

Stone raised difficult questions few had dared to ask.

Warners was relatively conservative

but they were a studio willing to take a risk at that time.

Kevin was also known as a conservative

so this was pretty scary to him, perhaps.

One thing I said with Oliver...

I said, "If we can't ever prove something

don't have me say, this is what happened."

'Cause we're trying to fill in the blanks of history.

Let me say, "Let us suppose."

And, you know, he honored that.

Maybe Oswald didn't even pull the trigger.

Nitrate tests indicate

he hadn't even fired a rifle on November 22.

I feel like JFK was almost like a fight

that everybody knows is gonna happen after the school.

When you think about the people that the Kennedys had issues with...

You are so naive.

J. Edgar Hoover, Castro...

The CIA, the FBI.

Oswald!

And not to mention, Hoffa.

They don't give a shit if he gets killed.

It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma!

They decided to not stop it. 'Cause they didn't like him.

We're talking about our government here.

No, we're talking about a crime, Bill.

Pure and simple.

Now we're through the looking glass here, people.

White is black...

and black is white.

We started the movie and we had a tremendous amount

of interference from the press.

They were knocking the film before it was made.

Washington Post, Newsweek, horrible stories.

The film came out. Tremendously exciting reviews.

But I got nailed on a lot of shows and people were coming after me.

Like flies, they came and attacked and attacked.

I got death threats about doing it, which kind of shocked me.

It has become a dangerous country, sir

when you cannot trust anyone anymore

when you cannot tell the truth.

Warner Bros. was great.

And I have to say

they fought for the film.

The outcry only drew audiences into theaters.

In turn, Warner Bros. used the publicity

as ammunition to lobby Congress

which declassified JFK files 12 years sooner than expected.

The film still sparks debate.

I think that Warner Bros.

wanna be more than just about action movies

more than just about hits.

To look at our past and do it effectively is to teach.

Whether national icons or local heroes

Warner Bros. dramatized true life stories

that had lasting impact

far beyond the box office.

Thousands of teachers all over America

have been using the film

for 35 years in their classroom.

Stand and Deliver, to me, has really become

what this art form can do.

At the highest level, there's nothing like it.

But Warner Bros. applied

that same level of social commentary to television

where creators found a more pervasive way

to blend fact and fiction.

- Hey! - All right!

Murphy Brown was

an unusually strong female lead.

She was a television journalist.

Very successful in her field.

You can do better than that. Come on.

Everybody's talking about

sitcom character, Murphy Brown.

It felt so current.

It felt so lively.

You had to tune in to Murphy Brown

to see what the writers were saying about current events.

If you remember

our Vice President at the time

made a blunder

because Murphy Brown was having a baby and wasn't married.

It became a big issue.

Bearing babies irresponsibly

is simply wrong.

It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown.

He is talking about you.

It was a firestorm.

It became this sort of headline for days.

"Murphy has baby, Quayle has cow."

We were not trying to negate the importance of fathers.

I didn't just wake up one morning and say

"Oh, gee, I can't get in for a facial.

I might as well have a baby."

We were trying to reflect the reality

of what was happening in the world at that time

and people appreciated the writing and the ambition of it.

Everything rang true.

As Murphy Brown took off

Warner Bros. purchased Lorimar

a production company with a TV division so prolific

that it earned the nickname "The Fifth Network."

When we acquired Lorimar

we ended up getting not only good assets, meaning shows

we ended up getting unbelievable people.

As big as the hits that Lorimar brought to Warner Bros.

it was a homegrown show with a bunch of unknown actors

that would become the studio's biggest hit

and one of the greatest shows in television history.

When the six of them

for the first time in the show, were together

I got chills up my spine.

How you doin'?

It was like they'd worked together for years.

You heard the material just rise.

What is Chandler Bing's job?

Oh, oh, he's a transponster!

That's not even a word!

It's not easy to write jokes for six characters.

A Chandler line is a Chandler line.

It can't be given to Joey.

Oh, my God!

That is so not the opposite of taking somebody's underwear!

Here we go. Pivot!

Pivot!

Pivot!

Shut up!

You rarely in life, get any experience

where everything comes together.

It's talented people who connect with the writing.

It's lightning in a bottle.

Smelly cat, smelly cat

What are they feeding you?

No... I'm sorry. It's...

Smelly cat

Smelly cat

No, don't feel bad, 'cause it's a hard song.

Yeah.

After the first season, we were the number one show on television.

And the whole thing kind of

exploded at that point

but we felt the pressure

to keep telling the story better.

I can't have sex with you.

- And why not? - Because I'm in love with Monica.

You're what?

As the superstars aligned

their ensemble chemistry created a cultural frenzy.

Yeah, baby.

The show averaged 25 million viewers a week

making it television's number one comedy

for six straight seasons.

It's a bunch of friends hanging out in a café

spending time with each other

and no one's on their phones because

of course, there weren't phones

when the show was made.

They were filming a show

that very much spoke to the era that we were living in.

But there's something almost nostalgic about it

for young people who are watching the show today.

This is everybody. This is Chandler, and Phoebe.

And Joey.

- And you remember my brother Ross? - Sure.

- Hey. - Hi.

In the beginning, what struck me was how innocent and naive they were.

And maybe the show was innocent and naive.

As they aged, the show ages.

And they're now facing the realities of growing up.

If the show is about that time in your life

when your friends are your family

once you have family of your own

it's no longer that time.

Thank you.

I guess this is it.

This is harder than I thought it would be.

The Friends farewell remains

the most watched television finale

since 2004

when 52 million viewers tuned in to say goodbye.

It was not just the end of a series.

It was the end of ten years of relationships.

It's the kind of TV I really enjoy.

TV that withstands the test of time and can bring people together.

Yet when Warner Bros.

debuted another freshman cast of characters

In the fall of 1994

lightning struck twice.

Three months old, seizing in one.

The frenetic medical drama

was the brainchild of author Michael Crichton.

But only after a referral from Steven Spielberg

did the project find its way to Warner Bros.

where executives trusted resident showrunner John Wells

to give it a life.

We didn't have a large budget

to make the show.

And we had to build the set in a certain way

and shoot in a certain way, and that meant that it looked real.

- She's bleeding out. - Carter, Chen, gown up.

So we had real doctors, real nurses as all of our extras.

We had two doctors who were also writers on our writing staff.

We did not change any of the medical jargon.

- Oh, man. - Pressure's up to 90 palp.

- Why wasn't he in restraints? - I don't know.

John Wells rightly said

it doesn't matter if they don't understand what you're saying

as long as they...

they understand what's going on

and root for the people.

It was really just one thing after another.

You know, someone comes in, go...

And it was electric.

BP's sky-high. 170 over 140.

- What about anesthesia? - There's no time.

Every television show that came after ER that deals with medicine

that deals with hospitals

owes a credit to ER

for changing the game

in terms of the realism.

Book an OR. Get ready to send Carter up.

- Where's the foley? - I'm working on it.

The camera angles, the cinéma-vérité style of shooting.

The action.

- Hey! - Move, move!

Do it!

It was chaos.

Get off of me.

That's what a real emergency room looks like.

And television hadn't really shown that before.

The show took off right away.

And by the third week

we were the number one or number two show in the country.

Routinely, at that time, we had 35 to 40 million viewers a week.

You had to go home and you had to watch on Thursday nights.

It was appointment television.

It was an exciting time at Warner Bros.

Really, 'cause that lot was magical.

It just felt like really new blood.

Everybody would go to the commissary to eat

and we'd all play basketball outside with the Friends cast

with whoever was around.

Friends and ER were quick phenomenons.

Changed the game

and quickly made NBC the number one network in television.

When I was at NBC

I was running the cable group.

As people tuned in all around America

the majority of our content was produced right here on this lot

and we had established the Thursday night

that was called Must See TV.

Must See TV. Warner Bros. TV.

The company's appetite only grew.

In 1996

Time Warner made Ted Turner

an offer he couldn't refuse.

Will it be a marriage

made in media heaven

that will provide quality

and not just quantity

for cable consumers

with Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting

for the proposed merger of the two media giants?

The unified juggernaut took control of CNN, HBO, and New Line Cinema.

And in a twist of fate that would have made the founders proud

Warner Bros. now owned

the MGM movie library.

Despite the company's added weight

Daly and Semel made sure it didn't lose its soul.

They embraced human stories that made headlines.

She was a singer with one name, Selena

known as the Mexican-American Madonna.

But in this motel in Corpus Christi, Texas

the former head of her fan club killed Selena.

Young fans across the country were heartbroken.

Her death was a tremendous loss to our community

and we wanted to do everything we could

to try to make something positive

out of this tragedy.

We went around town pitching the idea of doing a film about Selena

and a lot of people thought "Well, this is really a movie for TV.

This really isn't a big movie. You know?"

I went into Warner Bros., and I told them this story

about how I met these two little girls

and they were Mexicanas.

And I said, "Why do you love Selena?"

And they looked up at me and they said

"Because she looks like us."

They don't have a Disney Princess.

They never see themselves on the screen.

I'm going to make this film for them.

At the end of that pitch

they were in tears

and they said, "Yeah, let's do it."

That takes a huge amount of courage

for a studio to do such a thing.

But we couldn't just offer the role of Selena to anybody.

We wanted to see who could really do it.

- All right, here we go. - And rolling sound, quiet!

Action.

Nava chose a relative unknown

named Jennifer Lopez.

Warner Bros. offered her

an unprecedented salary of one million dollars

making her the highest-paid Latina actress ever.

She dedicated herself completely

because she knew that this was her shot

and she was keenly aware that the hopes and dreams

of our entire community

and all those young Latinas were riding on her shoulders.

How you doing, Houston, Texas?

Jennifer is a marvelous dancer.

She used her acting talent to dance like Selena.

And the performance is absolutely mind-boggling.

She lived and breathed Selena.

Doing that film and what it meant

was an advancement of the culture

in a way that

had never been seen before.

Selena still is one of the few movies that have been made

with Latino themes and a Latina actress leading the way.

I really feel

that if you tell the story of your village

you tell the story of the world.

But Warners didn't yet realize

that authentic storytelling would unlock the future.

Instead, the media empire wagered

on the promise of new technology.

It's three times sharper than VHS.

A revolution is about to hit the entertainment industry.

Now, this is the wave of the future right here.

In a move that echoed the dawn of sound

Warner Bros. became the first studio

to embrace a cutting-edge innovation.

Say goodbye to videotapes, hello to DVD.

A digital video disc.

And sales are soaring.

Warner Bros.' conviction persuaded the entire industry to follow suit.

Audiences went wild.

Rather than just renting content, they craved owning it.

The DVD ignited a huge revenue engine

that would soon outpace box office

and drive Hollywood out of the analog age

and into a digital one.

Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is.

You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix was all about

the beauty, importance

of the idea of the real.

How do we talk about what we are and who we are?

The Matrix was just so cutting-edge

and so profound, it was insane.

That made you think about the world and the possibility

that maybe this is all a simulation or something.

It's like, "Well, I don't know, it's really crazy."

Warner Bros. invested big in a dystopian vision

that felt very plausible in a Y2K-fearing world.

The pair of writer-directors, the Wachowskis

imagined a future ruled by machines

where humanity is imprisoned.

You take the red pill

you stay in Wonderland

and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

The Matrix themes are cautionary.

Systems of control...

Who has it, who uses it?

Ideas of revolution.

Far more than a mere action movie

The Matrix played as a parable on paranoia, truth, and liberation.

Its message rattled the psyche

and awakened the conscience.

The Matrix, to me, was a Warner Bros. film.

You know, it was science fiction, but it gave back in other ways.

I've met people who say they saw the first Matrix

and they weren't the same, you know.

They felt like they could see the world in a different way

that, at the core, made them feel better

like there's less confusion.

The films are a message of love

and, in a way, to take care of each other.

One month before The Matrix went viral

another moment marked the company's future.

Stanley Kubrick unveiled his longtime passion project

Eyes Wide Shut.

Stanley called and told me that

he had run it through the studio

and that Terry and Bob thought it was fantastic

and I could feel a sigh of relief

because it had gone on forever.

And in some terrible way

I feel that

he could let go then.

Then he died two days later after he talked to me

and three days after he showed it to Terry and Bob.

The creative partnership

that symbolized an era

of artistry had ended.

But the body of work endures.

I had never seen films like that before.

The production design, the costume

the cinema, the detail...

Everything working together for the vision of a filmmaker.

I just wanted to be in those movies

wanted to play those roles

wanted to say those words.

A few months after Kubrick's passing

Daly and Semel made an announcement.

We decided we were gonna leave

but I didn't wanna tell anybody until we opened Eyes Wide Shut.

Because Stanley only had a relationship with Terry and I.

We wanted to get the movie open

get everything set before we told the point we weren't gonna stay.

Leadership continuity was rare in Hollywood.

A place often fraught with studio upheaval.

But for two decades, Daly and Semel

exerted a calming influence

and championed more than 500 films together.

They had a movie that didn't open, and I asked them

"Was somebody gonna get fired for it?"

'Cause that's what happened at all the other studios at that point.

And they were like, "Look, this is a crapshoot.

We've made really good movies that have bombed

and we've made really bad movies that have been big hits

and it's timing, it's a lot of things."

And it worked for them.

They hired people they loved and they stuck with them.

And they said, "Okay, I trust you, you know?"

That's why Kubrick stayed as long as he did.

The days of indulging artists through thick and thin were numbered.

Daly and Semel made their farewell speech

inside the Steve Ross Theater

to their Warner family.

From time to time, we've been accused of being too generous with people.

I think that's the greatest thing that we could ever be accused of.

There are so many extraordinary filmmakers

who have worked under

the Warner Bros. banner

and I think it's a testament to the structure

of how a studio works

so they can find a home within what is often portrayed

in simplistic terms

as a mere commercial machine.

The fact that great art

comes through that system is really remarkable.

I think, if Warner Bros. ever loses

that sense of supporting individual voices

then it'll cease to function correctly.

As the countdown to the new millennium crept closer

rumors spread of yet another corporate shake-up.

One that raised doubts about endless growth in the Internet Age.

Warner Bros. braced for an oncoming identity crisis.

I don't know the future.

I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end.

Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.