(DISCLAIMER: THIS RELATES TO THE HISTORICAL/CURRENT MERGERS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY, THIS IS NONFICTION MASHED WITH FICTIONAL METAPHORS, THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR A MEME)
This is the Former Major Graveyard, a graveyard of former Major film studios that are gone or absorbed, let's see our 2 former Majors, 1 joining, and 1 leaving:
RKO Radio Pictures: Ahhh, yes, the one that created the absolute cinema, Citizen Kane, sure well some weirdo won't buy the studio and make it just a ghost company huh?... and unfortunately it did happen exactly and dissolved in 1958.
20th Century Fox: Enter a studio that merged into this company in 1935, they have the content, the Fox News cash cushion and the threat to Disney like Ice Age, Avatar, Independence Day, and even competes Disney on getting movies based off books (Because of Winn-Dixie and Mr. Popper's Penguins, anyone?), How come this great Major surrendered despite it being a Major? Ohhhh noooo, enter the NETFLIX BOOGEYMAN! The one that bleeds small companies to death and force them to scale or survive, turns out they tried to scale in 2014 with a WB buyout attempt (which would've ended WB's Major status eariler), but rejected, Fox basically grabbed a white flag and made Disney and Comcast fight (which under Comcast would lose its Major status anyway because Comcast owns Universal, another Major) and Disney won, the studio behind Ice Age, Blue Sky, shutted down and 20th Century Studios (no Fox, died from "Mouse infection") is now a zombie studio: technically existing but its soul gone.
Warner Bros: What's up Doc? Or... debt? This studio started as a small studio from the Warner family in 1923, then WB expanded radically and started attacking Disney when Universal was just a "zombies and cars" company, WB has cartoon violence in Looney Tunes Disney lacks, WB also does bold, high-risk movements and was basically A24 of 1940s, so what went wrong? Oh, ok, welcome Mr. Synergy! So WB went through the Warner Bros. Curse, a curse of a lot of failed mergers like AOL and AT&T, most projects in its final years like Batgirl cancelled suddenly, culture clashes (Wall Street HATES risk-takers), debt by debt, and the HBO Max disaster, WB was able to fight the Netflix Boogeyman, but the Boogeyman felled in love with the Shield, and then the Sponge (Paramount) stole the Shield away, and the Boogeyman walked away and focused on the couch again. And as of 2026, it's unfortunately the end. (unless some regulatory miracle happens) WB will no longer be a Major after 103 years. Rest well, Bugs. That's all folks.
Here is "The Resurrected"
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Respect, Leo, This is a Major that was from birth since a 3-way merger in 1924, birthing a mega-giant, they made a LOT, from The Wizard of Oz to Tom and Jerry, It was unavoidable, however, TV struck, rival Paramount successfully adapted , MGM refused, declined sharply and Mr. Kerkorian came and ruined MGM hard, eventually merging with UA, then it lost its Major status in Big' 86, then MGM failed a lot and lot, and went bankrupt a lot of times, and in 2010 also, then 2021 came and gave MGM hope, Amazon swooped in and grabbed MGM before Comcast or Netflix could, then looked at Netflix being cinemaphobic and decided to be anti-Netflix, and after theatrical releases of the very successful Project Hail Mary and more, MGM (or now Amazon MGM) successfully claimed back its Major status, especially since it has the Amazon infinite money glitch that could afford a 400 million box office bomb. (Unfortunately, it will never get its pre-86 film library back, ugh, Ted Turner is a legacy robber!!)
United Artists: Founded in 1919, it was a artist-friendly studio, with successes from James Bond to Pink Panther, however, 60s struck, Transamerica nuked UA and sold it to MGM in Big' 81, making it lose its Major status, however, under Amazon MGM, its also being revived.
Thank you from visiting our Graveyard!