Warner Village Cinemas

Background
Warner Village Cinemas was a European multiplex cinema chain that combined Warner Bros. Cinemas with Village Roadshow Pictures. Their locations were primarily based in the United Kingdom, with other locations in countries like Germany and Italy. The chain was created in 1996 and expanded for several years, but in the 2000s, other cinema chains bought and re-branded their locations, including Vue Cinemas. Italian operations lasted all the way until October of 2009, when Warner Village Cinemas S.p.A. merged with Mediaset to form The Space Cinema.

1st Logo (1993)


Nicknames: "100 Years", "Celebrating 100 Years"

Logo: We move through a mechanical door into a futuristic hallway with several doors and screens with gold/bronze outlines that display clips from old movies. We eventually enter one of the doorways on the right into a room with a filmstrip on the bottom, several small filmstrips showing more movie clips, and a distorted blue background. Soon after we have entered the room, we see three phrases formed one-by-one: "Celebrating 100 years of", "MOTION PICTURE ENTERTAINMENT Excellence", and "NOBODY DOES IT BETTER". The text is in different fonts and colors, and shines after one phrase has appeared. We then zoom out another mechanical door onto a mechanical roof against a dark cloudy sky, where a robotic arm grabs a plate that comes out of the door; on top of the plate are refreshments that have Looney Tunes characters on them. We zoom past the arm and refreshments to see a bucket carrying a red-orange chemical and dropping it into a container. The container's lid is twisted slightly and opens up to reveal the WB shield with the banner saying "WARNER BROS. CINEMAS". The camera zooms up to the shield as the mechanical roof disappears, leaving the shield, the cloudy sky, and several spotlights behind the shield. After a few seconds, the logo fades out. The entire logo lasts for approximately 1 minute.

FX/SFX: Everything in the logo, which is fairly decent computer animation for the 1990s. Done by Cinema Concepts.

Music/Sounds: A synth orchestra piece that gets bigger and more bombastic as the logo progresses. An electronic drumbeat is heard at the beginning and end of the logo. Several sound effects are heard like chimes, whooshes, and robotic/mechanical sounds.

Availability: Extinct. Most likely seen in the early-to-mid 90s and/or when the cinema chain celebrated 100 years of cinema.

Editor's Note: None.

2nd Logo (Early 1990s)
Logo: On a black background, the WB shield banner with the text "Warner Bros. Cinemas" on it appears from the bottom of the screen and turns to face us. The main part of the shield comes down from the top of the screen, and as it does so, we can see a white light shining onto the shield. The banner goes into its proper place around the shield as the camera moves away to make room for the stacked words "FEATURE PRESENTATION" in gold, which flips into view from behind the shield and settles underneath it. The camera then zooms toward "FEATURE PRESENTATION", and moves in between the two words and past them.

FX/SFX: The computer-animated shield, banner, and text moving. This, along with the previous logo, was done by Cinema Concepts.

Music/Sounds: A synthesized brass fanfare.

Availability: Extinct. Most likely seen in the early-to-mid 90s.

Editor's Note: The computer animation and music seem simple, cheap, and dated, especially when compared to the first logo. However, the animation was probably more impressive in the 90s.

1st Logo (Mid 1990s-2000s)


Nicknames: "Into The New Millennium", "The Shield and the V"

Logo: On a moving space background with stars and purple mist, we see the sun with a lens flare, a hand, and a rotating blue globe with gold continents and white latitude/longitude lines; the globe is levitating over the hand and is projecting a white star-like shape onto the hand. The camera zooms into the globe as several filmstrips encircle the globe. Most of the filmstrips disappear except for three of them, which land onto the United Kingdom, Germany (Deutschland) and Italy (Italia), respectively; each filmstrip is accompanied by silver text and the flag of the nation that a filmstrip lands on. The WB shield without the banner then rotates around the globe to face us as the globe moves off-screen. The shield moves to the left to make room for the Village Roadshow "V" on the right, and the text "WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS" to wipe in; WARNER VILLAGE is in their companies' respective fonts, while CINEMAS is white and smaller. As this is happening, a pink/white light appears below the logo with a purple spiraling filmstrip, and 4 white lights swirling around it. The logo and filmstrip zoom past us as the light and purple mist disappear, and the moving background slowly stops. Two metal M's form, which make room for smaller text and a line to create the phrase:

INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM

The text is then blown to pieces by an explosion, and when the smoke clears, we see Bugs Bunny in a basketball jersey reminiscent of the jersey from Space Jam, and spinning the globe from earlier on his finger like a basketball. The text "Now Our Feature Presentation" in blue and in script appears below Bugs' face as a Looney-Tunes-esque circle closes in on his head. He winks before the circle closes, and the blue text becomes blue mist, which zooms past us. The entire logo lasts for approximately 50 seconds.

Variant: A variant for the Japanese Warner Mycal Cinemas existed at the time, in which the end logo (The Warner Bros. shield above the Mycal wordmark used by said company) replaces the Warner Village Cinemas logo. This was spotted in a commercial from the 90's.

FX/SFX: Everything in the logo, which is a mix of computer animation and 2D animation. Impressive animation for the time period, and some of the animation somewhat holds up today, even if it's somewhat dated. As with the previous logos, it was done by Cinema Concepts.

Music/Sounds: A soothing, synthesized orchestra tune is heard as the logo starts with bass drum hits, cymbal rolls, and bell chimes up to the point where the shield appears. When the shield faces us, a synth horn/woodwind melody that is somewhat reminiscent of the ending melody from the first "Warner Bros. Cinemas" logo is heard, as well as a high-pitched synth string chord and synth bells to accompany the filmstrip spiral. A strange spaceship-like humming noise is heard as the logo and filmstrip spiral zoom past us. Metal noises and electric sounds are heard as "INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM" forms, followed by an explosion. When Bugs Bunny is on screen, a remix of "Merrily We Roll Along" is heard with cartoon sound effects, and a whoosh when the blue text zooms past us.

Availability: Extinct. Most likely seen between the mid-90s and the 2000s.

Editor's Note: The sun and lens flare suddenly disappear instead of simply moving off-screen or fading out. Also, the sun briefly appears before the third filmstrip lands on Italy with its silver text and flag. Nevertheless, this still is a great logo.

2nd Logo (Mid 1990s)


Logo: This short logo is just recycled animation from the 1st logo on a black background. The WB shield without the banner moves to the left as the Village Roadshow "V" appears from behind it and moves to the right. In between the two company logos, the text "WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS", in the same fonts, colors and sizes as before, wipe in.

FX/SFX: The company logos moving into place and the text wiping in, which is recycled from the 1st logo. However, there is a possibility that the animation was taken from this logo for the 1st logo rather than vice-versa. Also, if you look closely, the right edge of the Village Roadshow "V" suddenly appears rather than appearing from behind the shield.

Music/Sounds: A short, dreamy synth tune.

Availability: Extinct. Seen before the theater policy after the cinema chains were joined together.

Editor's Note: None.

3rd Logo (2000s)


Nickname: "Millennium", "Film di oggi"

Logo: Over a sunset background, there are 4 cranes with cameramen on them. We zoom past them as four searchlights emit from the city in the background, a la Searchlight Pictures. We then fade into more searchlights that start to emit as well. The camera starts panning down facing upward where a rollercoaster-like structure builds itself into a swirl where a fireball shoots up from behind. The camera then starts to go zooming up at a sonic-boom type of speed where the searchlights straightened themselves up and make a tunnel. During the tunnel zoom, some Looney Tunes countdown leaders start to play around the tunnel. As soon as the countdown leaders get to 1, we see the Warner Bros. shield and Village Roadshow logo. The fireball hits the shield where it explodes into many pieces of popcorn. We zoom back into place as the logos go from left to right respectively. The text "WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS," wipes in while the curtains open. When the curtains do, Bugs Bunny appears from behind them. He then zooms backstage. Then the Looney Tunes characters come down from a hanging platform where they build the words "and now our Feature Presentation" in a puff of smoke, brawling with each other as they do with objects such as mallets, carrots, and Tweety's head poking out of the smoke at times. The entire logo lasts for approximately 39 seconds.

Variant: An Italian variant exists where "and now our Feature Presentation" is replaced with "e adesso il film di oggi", meaning "And now today's film".

As with the previous logo, variants for other Warner cinemas around the world, such as Warner Mycal Cinemas and Portugal & Spain's Warner Lusomundo Cinemas exist.

FX/SFX: The searchlights, the fireball, and the countdown leaders, with what appears to be hand drawn animation for the Looney Tunes. Better animation than the previous logos which holds up well to this day.

Music/Sounds: A triumphant orchestral piece, which, at the end of the logo, turns into cartoon music that takes cues from "The Merry Go Round Broke Down". Sound effects like a Hanna Barbera "running away" sound and a cat yowl complement the cartoon antics.

Availability: Extinct, as by this point, the cinemas were bought by Vue and virtually all of the Warner Village Cinemas were being rebranded as such.

Editor's Note: This was an absolutely fantastic capper to Warner Village's lineage of great idents and bumpers.