First National - Rivalry With Paramount

Rivalry With Paramount

Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures was threatened by First National's financial power and its control over the lucrative first run theaters and decided to enter the cinema business as well. With a $10 million dollar investment, Paramount built their own chain of first-run movie theaters after a secret plan to merge with First National failed. Ironically, this led to the foundation of United Artists by Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, Pickford, and Chaplin, and to the loss of First National's biggest stars.

First National Exhibitors' Circuit was reincorporated in 1919 as Associated First National Pictures, Inc. and its subsidiary Associated First National Theatres, Inc., with 5,000 independent theater owners as members.

In the early twenties, Paramount attempted a hostile takeover, buying several of First National's member firms.

Associated First National Pictures expanded from only distributing films to producing them in 1924, and changed its corporate name to First National Pictures, Inc. It built its 62 acres (0.25 km2) studio lot in Burbank in 1926. The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America and the Independent Producers' Association declared war in 1925 on what they termed a common enemy — the "film trust" of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, and First National, which they claimed dominated the industry by not only producing and distributing motion pictures, but by entering into exhibition as well.