Curated playlist
Entertainment companies based in California
- The Walt Disney CompanyMickey Mouse was almost named Mortimer Mouse. Walt Disney's wife persuaded him to change it.
- Sony Pictures Home EntertainmentSony Pictures Home Entertainment began in 1979 without the Sony name. Its first 20 titles carried the Columbia name.
- Universal PicturesUniversal Pictures began as a revolt against Thomas Edison. Nine men founded the studio on April 30, 1912.
- Paramount PicturesParamount's mountain logo was reportedly sketched on a napkin in 1914. W. W. Hodkinson drew it from memory.
- Universal Music GroupUniversal Music Group traces back to a film studio, Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures.
- DirecTVDirecTV, headquartered in El Segundo, California, began broadcasting on the 17th of June 1994. By the end of that year's count it had 320,000 subscribers. Twenty years later, in 2014, the figure stood at 20,265,000. That is a lot of…
- Walt Disney Studios (division)In 2019, Walt Disney Studios took in a record $13.2 billion worldwide.
- Touchstone PicturesTouchstone was a fake studio name Disney made up in 1984. It let a children's studio release grown-up films.
- Warner Bros. PicturesIn 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, and silent film effectively ended.
- Skydance MediaSkydance Media took its name from a pilot's aerobatics. David Ellison founded it on the 4th of April 2006.
- Twitch (service)Google reportedly had a deal to buy Twitch, then Amazon bought it. Amazon paid just under one billion dollars in 2014.
- Sony Pictures TelevisionSony Pictures Television began as a small company called Pioneer Telefilms.
- Viz MediaViz Media slipped manga into art books and called them graphic novels so bookstores would carry them.
- United ArtistsFour silent film stars founded United Artists on the 5th of February 1919. They wanted more say over their own work.
- LucasfilmLucasfilm began on the 10th of December 1971, when filmmaker George Lucas founded it in Marin County, California. Today it is best known for Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and for pushing the craft of special effects, sound and computer…
- Critical Role ProductionsCritical Role asked fans to fund a 22-minute cartoon and got $11.3 million.
- Anonymous ContentSteve Golin left Propaganda Films and started a Los Angeles production company in 1999.
- Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts, which once put its programmers in full-page ads, agreed in 2025 to a $55 billion buyout.
- Urban VisionUrban Vision opened in Los Angeles in July 1996 to bring anime to mainstream America.