[4] The company had some major film successes, including Paths of Glory, The Vikings, Spartacus, Seven Days in May, Seconds, Grand Prix, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Final Countdown, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

[7][8][9] Douglas registered his new company, Bryna Productions, Incorporated, on September 28, 1949, and immediately began optioning properties and securing writers and directors, though it would take more than five years for a project to make it before the cameras.

[39] The Van Gogh biopic property was subject to some debate as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer also owned the filming rights to a similar story, Lust for Life, based on Irving Stone's novel, with John Houseman secured as producer and Vincente Minelli inked as director.

[52][53] While in Europe, Bryna Productions optioned German author Klaus Schuitz's story The Runaway Heart, which deals with an Italian girl who falls in love with an SS Nazi officer during World War II.

[56][47] Although Aurthur wrote the screenplay, Shadow of the Champ was ultimately never made, but the writer collaborated on four future projects with Bryna Productions: A Very Special Baby, Spring Reunion, Tales of the Vikings and Grand Prix.

[58][59] The second film was to be King Kelly, based on Robert Wright Campbell's novel about an ambitious soldier who attempts to set up his own empire in the Southwest after the Civil War, with Douglas starring and Daniel Mainwaring writing the screenplay.

In early April 1956, Bryna Productions announced that Lewis Milestone would direct King Kelly on location in Texas,[60][73] and later that month appointed Charles Levy as Eastern Publicity Representative of the company.

[77] A third one-picture deal was set with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the financing and distribution of a film based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Bird's Nest, which Bryna Productions purchased from theater producer Ray Stark.

[95] In November 1956, Bryna Productions announced interest in acquiring Stephen Longstreet's novel The Beach House, as well as Dale Wasserman and Jack Balch's teleplay Elisha and the Long Knives, as properties for Douglas to star.

[93] That month, Bryna Productions re-optioned Ben Hecht's story The Shadow, assigning screenwriter Allan Scott to re-develop it, while Sydney Boehm finished writing the screenplay for A Most Contagious Game, set to co-star Nelson (who also asked Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to let him play a role in The Viking but was turned down) and Martinelli.

[111] The Vikings began shooting using Technirama cameras and Technicolor film on June 20, 1957, on location near the Finnafjorden fjords in Norway, then in Copenhagen, Denmark, followed by Brittany, France, and finally interior scenes at Bavaria Filmkunst in Geiselgasteig, Germany.

[127] Following the success of The Indian Fighter, Ride Out for Revenge marked the fourth film in a row (after Spring Reunion, Lizzie and The Careless Years) to lose money on its investment; nevertheless Douglas had faith in Bryna Productions' future and luckily, so did the financing and distribution companies.

[156] As Douglas was by then busy filming Showdown at Gun Hill, Lewis and Margulies traveled to New York City on behalf of Bryna Productions and met with Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Kenneth Clark, vice-president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Turner Blair Shelton, film division chief of the United States Information Agency, Aleksandr A. Slavnov, head of the Soviet delegation, Aleksandr N. Davydov, head of Sovexportfilm, and Tamara Mamedov, cultural attaché for the Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C.[157][156] The project was met positively and the Soviet officials were given a detailed treatment of the script and a story outline to take back to the U.S.S.R., where it was presented for ratification by top film and government officials in Moscow upon their return in early May 1958.

[158] Another project which Bryna Productions was developing in 1958 was Nikolai Narokov's newly translated Russian novel The Chains of Fear, a story that takes place behind the Iron Curtain and was to star Ernest Borgnine.

[158][175] The amount of Douglas-focused publicity surrounding The Vikings, in which the actor was given credit for practically making the film on his own, lead to Bresler's departure as Producer and General Manager of Bryna Productions after three years with the company.

[206][195] In April 1959, Bryna Productions announced that it had acquired Vechel Howard's novel Sundown at Crazy Hose, scheduled to be filmed under the title Day of the Gun as part of a third one-picture financing and distribution deal with Universal-International Pictures.

[222] Spartacus had its world premiere on October 6, 1960, at the DeMille Theatre in New York City, using a special "roadshow print"; Super Technirama 70 film and cameras projected on spherical (curved) screens with a magnetic six-track stereophonic soundtrack.

[271] Set to co-star in the film were Douglas as Hernán Cortés, Yul Brynner (who was to co-produce the picture) as Moctezuma II and Sophia Loren as La Malinche; the role of Cuauhtémoc was to be given to a noted Mexican actor.

[341] In mid-December 1968, Douglas signed a starring and co-production, financing and distribution deal for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest between Bryna Productions and film producer Joseph E. Levine's Avco-Embassy Pictures, also set to shoot in 1969.

[181][382] The locals extended through Colmenar Viejo in Madrid, Cap de Creus in Cadaqués, Girona, Catalonia, La Manga del Mar Menor in Murcia, Jávea in Alicante, Valencia and at the Club Meditérranée.

[384] By February 1971, Bryna Productions had negotiated a co-producing and co-starring deal for Douglas to appear in a Euro-spy comedy film adaptation of George Marton and Tibor Meray's novel Catch Me a Spy.

[410][411] Michael Douglas, who was working on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,[412] had hoped to join the family on location but remained in California after being cast as co-star of American Broadcasting Company's new crime television series The Streets of San Francisco, which began shooting in late March 1972 and went on through most of the year.

[424] The musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel had been announced in late April 1972, when producers Douglas, Burt Rosen and David Winters hired Lionel Bart to compose new numbers for the production.

[465] One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest premiered on November 19, 1975, at the Regent Theatre in Westwood, Los Angeles, California and the next day headlined the Chicago International Film Festival, where it was nominated for a Gold Hugo Award for Best Feature.

[469] Afraid of nepotism,[470][471] and wanting to establish himself as a producer outside of his father's company,[472] the film's copyrights were instead filed through Curaçao-based imprint Naamloze Vennootschap Zwaluw, a corporation registered by Michael Douglas on December 6, 1974.

[474][475] In late July 1976, The Bryna Company announced that it would make Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, a fantasy story about two boys in a small town who encounter strange happenings at a travelling carnival.

[485] The play was to begin rehearsals on December 6, 1976, and was booked to open on January 11, 1977, at The Playhouse in Wilmington, Delaware, followed by engagements in Memphis, Tennessee, Cleveland, Ohio, Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New York City and Los Angeles.

[523][525] Upon returning to the United States in late 1983, Kirk Douglas announced that The Bryna Company would next produce Stanley West's novel Amos, a suspense-drama about a former baseball coach who uncovers a conspiracy in the nursing home in which he resides, as a television film for Columbia Broadcasting System.

[6] The festival, which was named Kirk Douglas & The Bryna Co.: The Star as Producer, was held at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in Hollywood, where eight films were screened: The Indian Fighter, The Vikings, Paths of Glory, an uncut version of Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave, Seven Days in May, Posse and Amos.

[559] The event was attended by Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti, director John Frankenheimer, actor Bo Hopkins, actress Dorothy McGuire and Kirk Douglas himself, all of whom participated in question-and-answer sessions between screenings.