Universal Pictures in the context of "Gravity (2013 film)"

A movie theater (American English) or cinema (Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, the big screen (colloquialism), or simply theater, is a business that contains auditoriums for viewing films for public entertainment. Most are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing tickets.

The film is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds and music are played through a number of wall-mounted speakers. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have been used for low-pitched sounds. Since the 2010s, the majority of movie theaters have been equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print on a heavy reel.

Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a neighborhood and district in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has become synonymous with the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios such as Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures are located in or near Hollywood.

Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. The northern and eastern parts of the neighborhood were consolidated with the City of Los Angeles in 1910. Soon thereafter, the prominent film industry migrated to the area.

NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is mostly involved in the media and entertainment industry, named for its two most significant divisions: the National Broadcasting Company (NBC)—one of the United States' Big Three television networks—and Universal Pictures, one of the major Hollywood film studios.

It also has a significant presence in broadcasting through a portfolio of domestic and international properties, including Bravo, Telemundo, and Universo, the streaming service Peacock and ownership stakes in Snap Inc. and Vox Media. Via its Universal Destinations & Experiences division, NBCUniversal is also the third-largest operator of amusement parks in the world.

Universal Newsreel (sometimes known as Universal-International Newsreel or just U-I Newsreel) was a series of 7- to 10-minute newsreels that were released twice a week between 1929 and 1967 by Universal Studios. A Universal publicity official, Sam B. Jacobson, was involved in originating and producing the newsreels. Nearly all of them were filmed in black-and-white, and many were narrated by Ed Herlihy. From January 1919 to July 1929, Universal released International Newsreel, produced by Hearst's International News Service—this series later became Hearst Metrotone News released first by Fox Film Corporation 1929–1934 and then by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer beginning in 1934.

In 1974, the films' owner, MCA, made the decision to donate all its edited newsreels and outtakes collection to the National Archives, without copyright restrictions. The decision effectively released the films into the public domain, although some stories may contain other underlying intellectual property or proprietary use rights. Because royalties no longer have to be paid in order to broadcast them, Universal Newsreels have become a popular source of file footage. The History Channel made them a key part of the TV series Year-By-Year. Also, C-SPAN and CNN regularly use the films for video of events that took place before those networks were founded. Nevertheless, much of the footage was lost in the 1978 National Archives vault fire which destroyed about 12.6 million feet of 35mm black and white negatives, or about 70% of the MCA-U donation. Most of the nitrate film was irreplaceable single-copy outtakes from WWII that had never been seen by the public.

Universal City is an unincorporated area within the San Fernando Valley.

Approximately 415 acres (168 ha) within and immediately outside the area is the property of Universal Pictures, NBCUniversal's film studio, one of the five major film studios in the United States. About 70 percent of the studio's property is inside this unincorporated area, while the remaining 30 percent is within the Los Angeles city limits. Universal City is nearly surrounded by Los Angeles, with the area's northeastern corner touching the city of Burbank.

The Birds is a 1963 American natural horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, released by Universal Pictures and starring Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, and introducing Tippi Hedren in her film debut. Loosely based on the 1952 short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, it focuses on a series of sudden and unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California, over the course of a few days. The screenplay is by Evan Hunter, who was told by Hitchcock to develop new characters and a more elaborate plot while keeping du Maurier's title and concept of unexplained bird attacks.

While it initially received mixed reviews when originally released, its reputation improved over time and it has since been considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time. At the 36th Academy Awards, Ub Iwerks was nominated for Best Special Effects for his work on the film. The award, however, went to the only other nominee, Emil Kosa Jr., for Cleopatra. Hedren won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress for her role in the film.

Marnie is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery.

Marnie became a milestone for several reasons. It was the last time a "Hitchcock blonde" would have a central role in one of his films. It also marked the end of Hitchcock's collaborations with cinematographer Robert Burks, who died in 1968; editor George Tomasini, who died soon after Marnie's release; and composer Bernard Herrmann, who was fired during Hitchcock's next film, Torn Curtain (1966), when Hitchcock and Universal studio executives wanted a pop-and-jazz-influenced score for the film.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, also known as Oswald the Rabbit, Oswald Rabbit, and Ozzie, is an animated cartoon character created in 1927 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in several animated short films released to theaters from 1927 to 1938. Twenty-seven animated Oswald shorts were produced at the Walt Disney Studio. After Universal took control of Oswald's character in 1928, Disney created Mickey Mouse as a replacement to Oswald.

In 2003, Buena Vista Games pitched a concept for an Oswald-themed video game to then-Disney President and future-CEO Bob Iger, who became committed to acquiring the rights to Oswald. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company acquired the trademark of Oswald (with NBCUniversal effectively trading Oswald for the services of Al Michaels as play-by-play announcer on NBC Sunday Night Football).

Duel is a 1971 American road action thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg in his feature film debut. It centers on a traveling salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) driving his car through rural California to meet a client. However, he finds himself chased and terrorized by the mostly unseen driver of a semi-truck. The screenplay by Richard Matheson adapts his own short story of the same name, published in the April 1971 issue of Playboy, and based on an encounter on November 22, 1963, when a trucker dangerously cut him off on a California freeway.

Produced by Universal Television as a television film, Duel originally aired as a part of the ABC Movie of the Week series on November 13, 1971. It later received an international theatrical release by Universal Pictures in an extended version featuring scenes shot after the film's original TV broadcast. The film received positive reviews from critics, with Spielberg's direction being singled out for praise. It has since been recognized as an influential cult classic and one of the greatest television films ever made.

Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley, it stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw), hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a New England summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the town's mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.

Shot mostly on location at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts from May to October 1974, Jaws was the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean and consequently had a troubled production, going over budget and schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks often malfunctioned, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the shark's presence, employing an ominous and minimalist theme created by composer John Williams to indicate its impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures released the film to over 450 screens, an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture at the time, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.