Warner Bros. Logo

One of the most recognizable and continued logos belongs to Warner Bros.  Since its founding, a WB shield has been involved in almost every decade.  Designs changed with new ownership in the 1960s, but returned to form in the 1980s.  Since adopting the 1998 CGI logo, film variations are fairly common.  A slimmer shield debuted in 2019.  For music, Max Steiner's Warner Fanfare was featured in tons of films until dropping out of favor in the 1950s.  

Here is a brief history of the logo and fun film variations.

Warner Bros. Logo (1923-1929)
Studio seen within the shield
Seen here in The Jazz Singer (1927)

Warner Bros. Logo (1934-1937)
Seen here in Captain Blood (1935)

Warner Bros. Logo (1937-1948)
Warner Fanfare by Max Steiner
Seen and first heard here in Tovarich (1937)

Warner Bros. Logo (1948-1967)
Wider shield often superimposed over the film opening
Seen here in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) 

Warner Bros. Logo (1967-1970)
New W7 design with new ownership as Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Seen here in Bullitt (1968)

Warner Bros. Logo (1970-1972)
New shield logo under new Kinney ownership
Seen here in The Cowboys (1972)

Warner Bros. Logo (1972-1984)
Branded as Warner Communications with design by Saul Bass
Seen here in Enter the Dragon (1973)

Warner Bros. Logo (1984-1997)
Return to stylized shield over clouds with byline changing with mergers
Seen here in Gremlins (1984)

Warner Bros. Logo (1998 – 2019)
Ripples through the WB backlot and zooms out to CGI logo
Music: As Time Goes By (Herman Hupfeld)
Seen here in The Hangover (2009)



Warner Bros. Logo (2019 – current)
Pan over the Warner lot (and water tower) before turning into new shield
Full version first seen in Locked Down (2021)


And now onto some fun variations:

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) 

The Searchers (1956) - logo displayed on a brick wall

Gypsy (1962) - logo is shown on the stage curtain

The Music Man (1962) - logo is shown on the marching parade banner

The Great Race (1965) - animated shield appears as part of fantastic illustrated credits

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Blazing Saddles (1974) - WB logo burns into the opening title

Follow That Bird (1985) - Big Bird pumps up the letter balloon "brought to you by the letters W and B"

Conspiracy Theory (1997) - Camera pulls back to reveal logo on a bus billboard

Batman and Robin (1997) - Darkened logo morphs into the Bat symbol which then freezes

You've Got Mail (1998) - Logo turns into a computer icon displayed on the screen

Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) - 75 Years logo explodes into the title sequence

The Matrix (1999) - Green tint and dark skies used for Matrix trilogy

Scooby-Doo (2002) - We hear Scooby taking a large cartoon bite of the logo

The Polar Express (2004) - Icicles appear around the shield over a black backdrop

The Good German (2006) - Throwback 1940's logo

Fred Claus (2007) - Snow falls with Christmas lights hung around the logo

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) - Buttons form the logo

Watchmen (2009) - Stylized black and yellow logo

Where the Wild Things Are (2009) - Max's scribbles appear over the logo

Sherlock Holmes (2009) - Shield is a part of the London cobblestones

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010) - Owl passes by the sunlit logo

The Losers (2010) - Stylized version appears in a comic book

Sucker Punch (2011) - Logo appears on the stage curtain

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 2 (2011) - Like the rest of the Harry Potter series, we zoom through the logo, which has deteriorated more each film

Argo (2012) - Retro Saul Bass logo with current byline

The Great Gatsby (2013) - Art deco designed to match the film

The Lego Movie (2014) - Entire logo made of Lego bricks, naturally

Suicide Squad (2016) - Shield lights and flickers in neon

Aquaman (2018) - Shield is underwater crashed into a rock

Tenet (2020) - New 2019 shield is given a red tint

In the Heights (2021) - The logo transforms to graffiti

The Suicide Squad (2021) - The yellow and red logo is on a concrete wall

Elvis (2022) - The ornate silver logo is surrounded by gold and jewels

The Flash (2023) - A streak of yellow lightning goes by past WB logos (1940s, Saul Bass) leading to the current logo.  The DC logo follows the same format.

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2 Comments

  1. Very nice collection. I actually look forward to seeing how the logo will be used in each of the subsequent Harry Potter films. Deathly Hallows :Part 1's rusting shield was really cool.

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  2. Hello David! Thank you for sharing....I was wondering where I could find sheet music for any of these scores.

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