Columbia Pictures
Encyclopedia
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (CPII) is an American film production
and distribution company
. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment
, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate
Sony
. It is one of the leading film companies in the world, a member of the so-called Big Six. It was one of the so-called Little Three
among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
The studio, founded in 1919 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn
and Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924 and went public two years later. In its early years a minor player in Hollywood, Columbia began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra
.
With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the primary homes of the screwball comedy
. In the 1930s, Columbia's major contract stars were Jean Arthur
and Cary Grant
(who was shared with RKO Pictures
). In the 1940s, Rita Hayworth
became the studio's premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell
, Glenn Ford
, and William Holden
also became major stars at the studio.
In 1982, the studio was purchased by Coca-Cola
; that same year it launched TriStar Pictures
as a joint venture with HBO and CBS
. Five years later, Coca-Cola spun off Columbia, which merged with Tri-Star to create Columbia Pictures Entertainment. After a brief period of independence with Coca-Cola maintaining a financial interest, the combined studio was acquired by Sony
in 1989.
The predecessor of Columbia Pictures, CBC Film Sales Corporation, was founded in 1919 by Harry Cohn
, his brother Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt.
Brandt was president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales, marketing and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood. Many of the studio's early productions were low-budget affairs; the start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row
studio on Hollywood's Gower Street
. Among Hollywood's elite, the studio's small-time reputation led some to joke that "CBC" stood for "Corned Beef and Cabbage."
. Cohn remained head of production as well, thus concentrating enormous power in his hands. He would run Columbia for the next 34 years, the second-longest tenure of any studio chief, behind only Warner Bros.
' Jack Warner
. In an industry rife with nepotism, Columbia's was particularly notorious. Humorist Robert Benchley
called it the Pine Tree Studio, "because it has so many Cohns."
Columbia's product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various serials, and cartoons. Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare, eventually joining the second tier of Hollywood studios along with United Artists
and Universal
. Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was a horizontally integrated
company that only controlled production and distribution.
Helping Columbia's climb was the arrival of an ambitious director, Frank Capra
. Between 1927 and 1939, Capra constantly pushed Cohn for better material and bigger budgets. A string of hits he directed in the early 1930s solidified Columbia's status as a major studio. In particular, It Happened One Night
, which nearly swept the 1934 Oscars, put Columbia on the map. Until then, Columbia's very existence had depended on theater owners willing to take its films, since it didn't own any theaters itself. Other Capra-directed hits followed, including the original version of Lost Horizon (1937), with Ronald Colman
, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
(1939), which made James Stewart
a major star.
Columbia couldn't afford to keep a huge roster of contract stars, so they usually borrowed them from other studios. At MGM, Columbia was nicknamed "Siberia", as Louis B. Mayer would use the transfer to Columbia as a way to punish his less obedient signings. In the 1930s they signed Jean Arthur
to a long-term contract, and after The Whole Town's Talking
(1935), Arthur became a major comedy star. Cary Grant
signed a contract in 1937 and soon after it was altered to a non-exclusive contract shared with RKO.
but let the Stooges go), the Stooges made 190 shorts for Columbia between 1934 and 1957. Columbia's short-subject department employed many famous comedians, including Buster Keaton
, Charley Chase
, Harry Langdon
, Andy Clyde
, and Hugh Herbert
. Almost 400 of Columbia's 529 two-reel comedies were released to television in the late 1950s; to date, only the Stooges and Keaton subjects have been released to home video.
In the early 1930s Columbia distributed Walt Disney
's famous Mickey Mouse
cartoons. In 1934 the studio established its own animation house, under the Screen Gems
brand; Columbia's leading cartoon series were Krazy Kat
, Scrappy
, The Fox and the Crow
, and (very briefly) Li'l Abner
. In the late 1940s Columbia agreed to release animated shorts from United Productions of America
; these new shorts were more sophisticated than Columbia's older cartoons, and many won critical praise and industry awards.
According to Bob Thomas's book King Cohn, studio chief Harry Cohn always placed a high priority on serials. Beginning in 1937 Columbia entered the lucrative serial market, and kept making these episodic adventures until 1956, after other studios had discontinued them. The most famous Columbia serials are based on comic-strip or radio characters: Mandrake the Magician
, The Shadow
, Terry and the Pirates
, Captain Midnight
, The Phantom
, Batman
, and Superman
, among many others. Columbia also had separate units shooting Western
B pictures
.
Columbia also produced musical shorts, sports reels (usually narrated by sportscaster Bill Stern
), and travelogues. Its "Screen Snapshots
" series, showing behind-the-scenes footage of Hollywood stars, was a Columbia perennial; producer-director Ralph Staub
kept this series going through 1958.
. Columbia maintained a long list of contractees well into the 1950s: Glenn Ford
, Penny Singleton
, William Holden
, Judy Holliday
, The Three Stooges, Ann Miller
, Evelyn Keyes
, Ann Doran
, Jack Lemmon
, Cleo Moore
, Barbara Hale
, Adele Jergens
, Larry Parks
, Arthur Lake
, Lucille Ball
, Kerwin Mathews
, and Kim Novak
.
Harry Cohn monitored the budgets of his films, and the studio got the maximum use out of costly sets, costumes, and props by reusing them in other films. Many of Columbia's low-budget "B" pictures and short subjects have an expensive look, thanks to Columbia's efficient recycling policy. Cohn was reluctant to spend lavish sums on even his most important pictures, and it wasn't until 1943 that he agreed to use three-strip Technicolor
in a live-action feature. (Columbia was the last major studio to employ the expensive color process.) Columbia's first Technicolor feature was the western The Desperadoes
, starring Randolph Scott
and Glenn Ford
. Cohn quickly used Technicolor again for Cover Girl, a Hayworth vehicle that instantly was a smash hit, released in 1944, and for the fanciful biography of Frederic Chopin
, A Song to Remember
, with Cornel Wilde
, released in 1945. Another biopic, 1946's The Jolson Story
with Larry Parks
and Evelyn Keyes
, was started in black-and-white, but when Cohn saw how well the project was proceeding, he scrapped the footage and insisted on filming in Technicolor.
In 1948, the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
anti-trust decision forced Hollywood motion picture companies to divest themselves of the theatre chains that they owned. Since Columbia didn't own any theaters, it was now on equal terms with the largest studios, and soon replaced RKO on the list of "Big Five" studios.
. The Donna Reed Show
, The Partridge Family
, Bewitched
, I Dream of Jeannie
and The Monkees
followed. In 1960, company became a publicly traded company under the name Screen Gems, Inc. when Columbia spun off an 18% stake.
In 1957, after its parent company Columbia dropped UPA, Screen Gems entered a distribution deal with Hanna-Barbera Productions, which produced classic TV cartoon shows such as The Flintstones
, Ruff and Reddy, The Huckleberry Hound Show, Yogi Bear
, Jonny Quest
, The Jetsons
and others. Screen Gems would distribute until 1967, when Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting
.
(Boston Blackie
, Blondie
, The Lone Wolf, The Crime Doctor, Rusty, etc.) Only Jungle Jim
, launched by producer Sam Katzman
in 1949, kept going through 1955. Katzman contributed greatly to Columbia's success by producing dozens of topical feature films, including crime dramas, science-fiction stories, and rock-'n'-roll musicals. (For details about these Columbia releases of the 1950s, see the Sam Katzman
entry.) Columbia kept making serials until 1956 and two-reel comedies until 1957, after other studios had discontinued them.
As the larger studios declined in the 1950s, Columbia's position improved. This was largely because it did not suffer from the massive loss of income that the other major studios suffered from the loss of their theaters (well over 90 percent, in some cases). Columbia continued to produce 40-plus pictures a year, offering productions that often broke ground and kept audiences coming to theaters such as its adaptation of the controversial James Jones
novel, From Here to Eternity
(1953), On the Waterfront
(1954) and The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957) with William Holden
and Alec Guinness
. All three films won the Best Picture Oscar
Columbia also released the made-in-England Warwick Films
by producers Irving Allen
and Albert R. Broccoli
as well as many films by producer Carl Foreman
who resided in England. Columbia also distributed some films made by Hammer
.
Shortly after closing their short subjects department, Columbia president Harry Cohn
died of a heart attack in February 1958.
By the late 1960s, Columbia had an ambiguous identity, offering old-fashioned fare like A Man for All Seasons
and Oliver!
along with the more contemporary Easy Rider
and The Monkees
. After turning down releasing Albert R. Broccoli
's Eon Productions
James Bond
films, Columbia hired Broccoli's former partner Irving Allen
to produce the Matt Helm
series with Dean Martin
. Columbia also produced a James Bond spoof, Casino Royale
(1967), in conjunction with Charles K. Feldman
, which held the adaptation rights for that novel
.
In 1968, Columbia Pictures Corporation merged with its subsidiary Screen Gems and was renamed Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Nearly bankrupt by the early 1970s, the studio was saved via a radical overhaul: the Gower Street studios were sold and a new management team was brought in. In 1972, Columbia and Warner Bros. formed a partnership called The Burbank Studios in which both companies shared the Warner studio lot in Burbank
. While fiscal health was restored through a careful choice of star-driven vehicles, the studio's image was badly hurt by the David Begelman
check-forging scandal. Begelman eventually resigned (later ending up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
before committing suicide in 1995), and the studio's fortunes gradually recovered.
From 1971 until the end of 1987, Columbia's international distribution operations were a joint venture with Warner Bros., and in some countries, this joint venture also distributed films from other companies (like EMI Films
and Cannon Films in the UK). Warners pulled out of the venture in 1988 to join up with Walt Disney Pictures
.
In a cost-cutting move, Columbia vacated its Gower Street studio lot (now called Sunset Gower Studios
) and began sharing studio space with Warner Bros in a joint venture called the Burbank Studios in 1972.
In 1974, Columbia retired the Screen Gems name from television, renaming its television division Columbia Pictures Television
. The name was suggested by David Gerber
, who was then-president of Columbia's television division. The same year, Columbia Pictures acquired Rastar Pictures
, which included Rastar Productions, Rastar Features, and Rastar Television. Ray Stark then founded Rastar Films, the reincarnation of Rastar Pictures and it was acquired by Columbia Pictures in February 1980.
, which owned 11 theaters. With a healthier balance-sheet (due in large part to box office hits like Stir Crazy
, The Blue Lagoon
, and Stripes
) Columbia was bought by Coca-Cola
on June 22, 1982 for $750 million, after having considered buying the struggling Walt Disney Productions. Studio head Frank Price mixed big hits like Tootsie
, The Karate Kid, The Big Chill
, and Ghostbusters
with many costly flops. To share the increasing cost of film production, Coke brought in two outside investors whose earlier efforts in Hollywood had come to nothing. In 1982, Columbia, Time Inc.
's HBO and CBS
announced, as a joint venture, "Nova Pictures"; this enterprise was to be renamed Tri-Star Pictures.
On June 18, 1985, Columbia acquired Norman Lear
and Jerry Perenchio
's Embassy Pictures Corporation
(included Embassy Television
and Tandem Productions
), mostly for its library of highly successful television series such as All in the Family
and The Jeffersons
for $485 million. The same year, Columbia Pictures acquired the remaining 19% of The Walter Reade Organization. On November 16, 1985, CBS dropped out of the Tri-Star venture.
Expanding its television franchise, on May 6, 1986, Columbia also bought Merv Griffin Enterprises
, notable for successful shows: Wheel of Fortune
, Jeopardy!
, Dance Fever
, and The Merv Griffin Show
, on May 6, 1986 for $250 million. Months later on August 28, 1986, the Columbia Pictures Television Group acquired Danny Arnold
's Four D Productions, Inc. including the rights to the successful sitcom Barney Miller
among other produced series after Arnold dropped the Federal and state lawsuits against the television studio accusing them for antitrust
violations, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. The same year, Columbia recruited British producer David Puttnam
to head the studio. He held the position for only one year. Also, Coca-Cola sold the Embassy Pictures division to Dino de Laurentiis
, who later folded Embassy Pictures into Dino de Laurentiis Productions, Inc. and became De Laurentiis Entertainment Group. Coca-Cola also sold Embassy Home Entertainment to Nelson Entertainment
.
In 1987, Tri-Star expanded into the television business with its new Tri-Star Television division. HBO was the last partner drop out of the Tri-Star venture. On June 26, 1987, Coca-Cola sold The Walter Reade Organization to Cineplex Odeon Corporation. The volatile film business made Coke shareholders nervous, and following the box-office failure, Ishtar
, Coke spun off its entertainment holdings in 1987. The new stand-alone company became Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE), with Coke owning 49% of the company. CPE brought Tri-Star fully into the fold in December 1987, creating Columbia/Tri-Star. Puttnam was succeeded by Dawn Steel
, the first woman to run a Hollywood motion picture studio. Other small-scale, "boutique" entities were created: Nelson Entertainment
, a joint venture with British and Canadian partners, Triumph Films
, jointly owned with French studio Gaumont
, and is now a low-budget label, and Castle Rock Entertainment
. On February 8, 1988, Columbia/Embassy Television and Tri-Star Television were formed into the new Columbia Pictures Television and Embassy Communications was renamed to ELP Communications.
for the amount of $3.4 billion, one of several Japanese firms then buying American properties
. The sale netted Coca-Cola a handsome profit from its investment in the studio. Sony then hired two producers, Peter Guber
and Jon Peters
to serve as co-heads of production when Sony also acquired Guber-Peters Entertainment (the former game show production company, Barris Industries) for $200 million on September 29, 1989. Guber and Peters had just signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros; to extricate them from this contract. Because Guber and Peters were still under contract to Warner Bros., Time Warner sued Sony. Sony completed CPE's acquisition on November 8 and the Guber-Peters acquisition was completed on the following day.
On December 1, 1989, Guber and Peters hired longtime lawyer of GPEC Alan J. Levine, to the post of president and COO of Columbia's newly formed company Filmed Entertainment Group (FEG). FEG consisted of Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Triumph Releasing, Columbia Pictures Television, CPTD, Merv Griffin Enterprises, RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, and ancillary and distribution companies.
Records Club mail-order business, and bought from Time Warner the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
studio in Culver City, which Warner Communications had acquired in its takeover of Lorimar-Telepictures
in 1989, thus ending the Burbank Studios partnership. Initially renamed Columbia Studios, Sony spent $100 million to refurbish the rechristened Sony Pictures Studios
. Guber and Peters set out to prove they were worth this fortune, but though there were to be some successes, there were also many costly flops. Peters was fired by his partner Guber in 1991, but Guber later resigned in 1994 to form Mandalay Entertainment
the following year. The entire operation was reorganized and renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment
(SPE) on August 7, 1991, and at the same time, TriStar (which had officially lost its hyphen) relaunched its television division in October. Publicly humiliated, Sony suffered an enormous loss on its investment in Columbia, taking a $2.7 billion write-off in 1994. John Calley
took over as SPE president in November 1996, installing Amy Pascal
as Columbia Pictures president and Chris Lee
as president of production at TriStar. By the next spring, the studios were clearly rebounding, setting a record pace at the box office. In 1998, Columbia and TriStar merged to form the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (a.k.a. Columbia TriStar Pictures), though both studios still produce and distribute under their own names. Pascal retained her position as president of the newly united Columbia Pictures, while Lee became the combined studio's head of production.
In 1994, Columbia Pictures Television and TriStar Television were integrated into Columbia TriStar Television
(CTT), including the rights to Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!
In 1994 as well, the television library expanded when Susan Stafford
sold Barry & Enright Productions
, which included the post-scandal Jack Barry Productions (excluding those owned by NBC
), to CTT. The company also purchased Stewart Tele Enterprises
. In 1997, Columbia Pictures ranked as the highest grossing movie studio in the United States with a gross of $1.256 billion. In 1999, Sony Pictures Entertainment relaunched the Screen Gems brand as a horror and independent film distribution company and TriStar Television was folded into CTT. Two years later, CPT was folded into CTT as well.
In the 1990s, Columbia announced plans of a rival James Bond franchise, since they owned the rights of Casino Royale and were planning to make a third version of Thunderball with Kevin McClory
. MGM and Danjaq, LLC, owners of the franchise, sued Sony Pictures in 1997, with the legal dispute ending two years later in an out-of-court settlement. Sony traded the Casino Royale rights for $10 million, and the Spider-Man
filming rights. The superhero has since become Columbia's most successful franchise, with the first movie
coming out in 2002 and having since since gained two sequels, with plans for two more. Ironically, between the releases of the first and second sequels, Sony Corporation led a consortium that purchased MGM – giving it distribution rights to the James Bond franchise.
for arthouse fare, and by backing Revolution Studios
, the production company headed by Joe Roth
. On September 16, 2002, Columbia TriStar Television was renamed to Sony Pictures Television
. Also in 2002, Columbia broke the record for biggest domestic theatrical gross, with a tally of $1.575 billion, coincidentally breaking its own record of $1.256 billion set in 1997, which was raised by such blockbusters as Spider-Man
, Men in Black II
and xXx
. The studio was also the most lucrative of 2004, with over $1.338 billion dollars in the domestic box office with movies such as Spider-Man 2
, 50 First Dates
and The Grudge
, and in 2006, Columbia, helped with such blockbusters as: The Da Vinci Code
, The Pursuit of Happyness
and Casino Royale
, not only finished the year in first place, but it reached an all time record high sum of $1.711 billion, which was an all-time yearly record for any studio until Warner Bros. surpassed it in 2009.
(representing Columbia, a personification of the United States), has gone through five major revisions.
Originally in 1924, Columbia Pictures used a logo featuring a female Roman soldier holding a shield in her left hand and a stick of wheat in her right hand.
The first Torch Lady logo debuted in 1928. This version had no clouds, and had rays emanating from the torch in a flickering style of animation. The "Torch Lady" wore a headdress, and above her were the words "A Columbia Production" ("A Columbia Picture" or "Columbia Pictures Corporation") written in an arch.
In 1936, the logo was changed: the "Torch Lady" now stood on a pedestal, wore no headdress, and the single word "Columbia" appeared in chiseled letters behind her. The animation was improved so that the torch now radiated light instead of the more artificial-looking rays of light projecting from the torch. There were several variations to the logo over the years —significantly, a color version was done in 1943 for The Desperadoes, and the flag became just a drape with no markings – but it remained substantially the same for 40 years. 1976's Taxi Driver
was one of the last films to use the "Torch Lady" in her classic appearance.
From 1976–1993, Columbia experimented with two new logos. The first one was used from 1976–1981, and the second one was used from 1981–1993. Visual effects pioneer Robert Abel was hired by the studio for the first logo's animation. In the 1976 logo, it began with the familiar lady with a torch. Then, the camera zoomed in on the torch, and the torch-light rays then formed an abstract blue semicircle depicting the top half of the rays of light, with the name of the studio appearing under it, written in ITC Souvenir. This logo was first used on The Who's Tommy and then used on a regular basis starting with Murder by Death. The television counterpart used only the latter part of the logo, and the semicircle was orange. (It sometimes looks red, due to variations in the laboratory development process, but according to Columbia Pictures Entertainment's official logo color coding for their various divisions, it was meant to be orange). The second logo, introduced in 1981, featured the words "Columbia Pictures" straddling the Torch Lady, who was in this case less detailed in appearance. The shape of the lady's body was described as resembling a Coca-Cola
bottle.
The current logo was created in 1992, when the logo was repainted digitally by New Orleans artist, Michael Deas, who was commissioned to return the lady to her "classic" look. Deas used Jenny Joseph, a homemaker and mother of two children, as a model, but used a composite for the face. The animation, created by Synthespian Studios in 1993 by Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak, starts with a bright light, which zooms out to reveal the torch and then the lady. The duo used 2D elements from the painting and converted it to 3D.
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
and distribution company
Film distributor
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...
. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate
Conglomerate (company)
A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...
Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
. It is one of the leading film companies in the world, a member of the so-called Big Six. It was one of the so-called Little Three
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
The studio, founded in 1919 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
and Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924 and went public two years later. In its early years a minor player in Hollywood, Columbia began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
.
With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the primary homes of the screwball comedy
Screwball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
. In the 1930s, Columbia's major contract stars were Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
and Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
(who was shared with RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
). In the 1940s, Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
became the studio's premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
, Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
, and William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
also became major stars at the studio.
In 1982, the studio was purchased by Coca-Cola
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
; that same year it launched TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...
as a joint venture with HBO and CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
. Five years later, Coca-Cola spun off Columbia, which merged with Tri-Star to create Columbia Pictures Entertainment. After a brief period of independence with Coca-Cola maintaining a financial interest, the combined studio was acquired by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
in 1989.
The early years
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
, his brother Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt.
Brandt was president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales, marketing and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood. Many of the studio's early productions were low-budget affairs; the start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...
studio on Hollywood's Gower Street
Gower Street (Hollywood)
Gower Street is a street in Los Angeles, California that has played an important role in the ongoing evolution of Hollywood, particularly as the home to several prominent Poverty Row studios during the area's Golden Age...
. Among Hollywood's elite, the studio's small-time reputation led some to joke that "CBC" stood for "Corned Beef and Cabbage."
Reorganization and new name
Brandt eventually tired of dealing with the Cohn brothers, and sold his one-third stake to Harry Cohn, who took over as president. In an effort to improve its image, the Cohn brothers renamed the company Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10, 19241924 in film
-Events:* Entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures to create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
. Cohn remained head of production as well, thus concentrating enormous power in his hands. He would run Columbia for the next 34 years, the second-longest tenure of any studio chief, behind only Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
' Jack Warner
Jack Warner
Jack Leonard "J. L." Warner , born Jacob Warner in London, Ontario, was a Canadian American film executive who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California...
. In an industry rife with nepotism, Columbia's was particularly notorious. Humorist Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
called it the Pine Tree Studio, "because it has so many Cohns."
Columbia's product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various serials, and cartoons. Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare, eventually joining the second tier of Hollywood studios along with United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
and Universal
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
. Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was a horizontally integrated
Horizontal integration
In microeconomics and strategic management, the term horizontal integration describes a type of ownership and control. It is a strategy used by a business or corporation that seeks to sell a type of product in numerous markets...
company that only controlled production and distribution.
Helping Columbia's climb was the arrival of an ambitious director, Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Between 1927 and 1939, Capra constantly pushed Cohn for better material and bigger budgets. A string of hits he directed in the early 1930s solidified Columbia's status as a major studio. In particular, It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night is a 1934 American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter . The plot was based on the story Night Bus by Samuel...
, which nearly swept the 1934 Oscars, put Columbia on the map. Until then, Columbia's very existence had depended on theater owners willing to take its films, since it didn't own any theaters itself. Other Capra-directed hits followed, including the original version of Lost Horizon (1937), with Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American drama film starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart about one man's effect on American politics. It was directed by Frank Capra and written by Sidney Buchman, based on Lewis R. Foster's unpublished story. Mr...
(1939), which made James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
a major star.
Columbia couldn't afford to keep a huge roster of contract stars, so they usually borrowed them from other studios. At MGM, Columbia was nicknamed "Siberia", as Louis B. Mayer would use the transfer to Columbia as a way to punish his less obedient signings. In the 1930s they signed Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
to a long-term contract, and after The Whole Town's Talking
The Whole Town's Talking
The Whole Town's Talking is a 1935 comedy film starring Edward G. Robinson as a law-abiding man who bears a striking resemblance to a killer, with Jean Arthur as his love interest. It was directed by John Ford from a screenplay by Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin based on a story by W.R...
(1935), Arthur became a major comedy star. Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
signed a contract in 1937 and soon after it was altered to a non-exclusive contract shared with RKO.
Short subjects
At Harry Cohn's insistence the studio signed The Three Stooges in 1934. Rejected by MGM (which kept straight-man Ted HealyTed Healy
Ted Healy was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor. He is chiefly remembered today as the original creator of the Three Stooges, but had a successful stage and film career of his own.- Early life :...
but let the Stooges go), the Stooges made 190 shorts for Columbia between 1934 and 1957. Columbia's short-subject department employed many famous comedians, including Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
, Charley Chase
Charley Chase
Charley Chase was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies...
, Harry Langdon
Harry Langdon
Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
, Andy Clyde
Andy Clyde
Andy Clyde was a Scottish movie and TV actor whose career spanned more than four decades. He broke into silent films in 1925 as a Mack Sennett comic...
, and Hugh Herbert
Hugh Herbert
Hugh Herbert was a motion picture comedian. He began his career in vaudeville, and wrote more than 150 plays and sketches.-Career:...
. Almost 400 of Columbia's 529 two-reel comedies were released to television in the late 1950s; to date, only the Stooges and Keaton subjects have been released to home video.
In the early 1930s Columbia distributed Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
's famous Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
cartoons. In 1934 the studio established its own animation house, under the Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
brand; Columbia's leading cartoon series were Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
, Scrappy
Scrappy
Scrappy is a cartoon character created by Dick Huemer for Charles Mintz's Krazy Kat Studio. A little round-headed boy, Scrappy often found himself involved in off-beat neighborhood adventures. Usually paired with his little brother Oopy , Scrappy also had an on-again, off-again girlfriend named...
, The Fox and the Crow
The Fox and the Crow
The Fox and the Crow are a pair of anthropomorphic cartoon characters created by Frank Tashlin for the Screen Gems studio. The characters, the refined but gullible Fauntleroy Fox and the streetwise Crawford Crow, appeared in a series of animated short subjects released by Screen Gems through its...
, and (very briefly) Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
. In the late 1940s Columbia agreed to release animated shorts from United Productions of America
United Productions of America
United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American animation studio of the 1940s through present day, beginning with industrial films and World War II training films. In the late 1940s, UPA produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures, most notably the Mr. Magoo series. In...
; these new shorts were more sophisticated than Columbia's older cartoons, and many won critical praise and industry awards.
According to Bob Thomas's book King Cohn, studio chief Harry Cohn always placed a high priority on serials. Beginning in 1937 Columbia entered the lucrative serial market, and kept making these episodic adventures until 1956, after other studios had discontinued them. The most famous Columbia serials are based on comic-strip or radio characters: Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk , which began June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate.Davis worked on the strip until his death in 1964,...
, The Shadow
The Shadow
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...
, Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates is the title of:* Terry and the Pirates , the comic strip created by Milton Caniff* Terry and the Pirates , a radio serial based on the comic strip...
, Captain Midnight
Captain Midnight
Captain Midnight is a U.S. adventure franchise first broadcast as a radio serial from 1938 to 1949. Sponsored by the Skelly Oil Company, the radio program was the creation of radio scripters Wilfred G. Moore and Robert M...
, The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...
, Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
, and Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, among many others. Columbia also had separate units shooting Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
B pictures
B pictures
In the field of video compression a video frame is compressed using different algorithms with different advantages and disadvantages, centered mainly around amount of data compression. These different algorithms for video frames are called picture types or frame types. The three major picture...
.
Columbia also produced musical shorts, sports reels (usually narrated by sportscaster Bill Stern
Bill Stern
Bill Stern was a U.S. actor and sportscaster who announced the nation's first remote sports broadcast and the first telecast of a Major League Baseball game. In 1984, Stern was part of the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame’s inaugural class which included sportscasting legends Red...
), and travelogues. Its "Screen Snapshots
Screen Snapshots
Screen Snapshots were a series of documentary short subjects produced by Columbia Pictures between 1924 and 1958. They featured behind-the-scenes footage of Hollywood stars of the day at various Hollywood events or parties...
" series, showing behind-the-scenes footage of Hollywood stars, was a Columbia perennial; producer-director Ralph Staub
Ralph Staub
Ralph Staub was a movie director, writer and producer.Three of his short subjects in the Screen Snapshots series have been nominated for the Academy Award and he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1752 Vine Street in Hollywood, California, USA.-Selected filmography:* As Director**...
kept this series going through 1958.
1940s
In the 1940s, propelled in part by their film's surge in audiences during the war, the studio also benefited from the popularity of its biggest star, Rita HayworthRita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
. Columbia maintained a long list of contractees well into the 1950s: Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
, Penny Singleton
Penny Singleton
Penny Singleton was an American film actress. Born Marianna Dorothy Agnes Letitia McNulty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania she was the daughter of an Irish-American newspaperman Benny McNulty — from whom she received the nickname "Penny" because she was "as bright as a penny".During her sixty...
, William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
, Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
, The Three Stooges, Ann Miller
Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
, Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Louise Keyes was an American film actress. She is best-known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...
, Ann Doran
Ann Doran
Ann Lee Doran was an American character actress.-Early life and career:Born in Amarillo, Texas, Doran began acting at the age of four. She appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names to keep her father's family from finding out about her work...
, Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
, Cleo Moore
Cleo Moore
Cleouna "Cleo" Moore was an American actress, usually seen in the role of a blonde bombshell, in 1950s Hollywood films. She was known as Columbia Pictures's clone of 20th Century Fox's, Marilyn Monroe...
, Barbara Hale
Barbara Hale
Barbara Hale is an American actress best known for her role as legal secretary Della Street on more than 250 episodes of the long-running Perry Mason television series and later reprising the role in dozens of made-for-TV movies....
, Adele Jergens
Adele Jergens
Adele Jergens was an American actress.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Jergen's birth date is sometimes listed as 1922. Jergens first rose to prominence in the late 1930s, when she was named "Miss World's Fairest" at the 1939 New York World's Fair...
, Larry Parks
Larry Parks
Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...
, Arthur Lake
Arthur Lake (actor)
Arthur Lake was an American actor known best for bringing Dagwood Bumstead, the bumbling husband of Blondie, to life in film, radio and television.-Early life and career:...
, Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
, Kerwin Mathews
Kerwin Mathews
Kerwin Mathews was an American actor best known for playing the titular heroes in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad , The Three Worlds of Gulliver and Jack the Giant Killer .-Life and career:...
, and Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
.
Harry Cohn monitored the budgets of his films, and the studio got the maximum use out of costly sets, costumes, and props by reusing them in other films. Many of Columbia's low-budget "B" pictures and short subjects have an expensive look, thanks to Columbia's efficient recycling policy. Cohn was reluctant to spend lavish sums on even his most important pictures, and it wasn't until 1943 that he agreed to use three-strip Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
in a live-action feature. (Columbia was the last major studio to employ the expensive color process.) Columbia's first Technicolor feature was the western The Desperadoes
The Desperadoes
The Desperadoes is a Western movie, starring Randolph Scott and Glenn Ford. It was the first Columbia Pictures production to be released in Technicolor.-Plot:...
, starring Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals , adventure tales, war films, and even a few...
and Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
. Cohn quickly used Technicolor again for Cover Girl, a Hayworth vehicle that instantly was a smash hit, released in 1944, and for the fanciful biography of Frederic Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember is a 1945 Columbia Pictures biographical film which tells a fictionalised life story of Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin...
, with Cornel Wilde
Cornel Wilde
Cornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City...
, released in 1945. Another biopic, 1946's The Jolson Story
The Jolson Story
The Jolson Story is a 1946 musical biography which purports to tell the life story of singer Al Jolson. It stars Larry Parks as Jolson, Evelyn Keyes as "Julie Benson" , William Demarest as his manager, Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne as his parents, and Scotty Beckett as the young Jolson.The...
with Larry Parks
Larry Parks
Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...
and Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Louise Keyes was an American film actress. She is best-known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...
, was started in black-and-white, but when Cohn saw how well the project was proceeding, he scrapped the footage and insisted on filming in Technicolor.
In 1948, the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 was a landmark United States Supreme Court anti-trust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would...
anti-trust decision forced Hollywood motion picture companies to divest themselves of the theatre chains that they owned. Since Columbia didn't own any theaters, it was now on equal terms with the largest studios, and soon replaced RKO on the list of "Big Five" studios.
Screen Gems
In 1946, Columbia dropped the Screen Gems brand from its cartoon line, but retained the Screen Gems name for various ancillary activities, including a 16 mm film-rental agency and a TV-commercial production company. In 1948, Columbia adopted the Screen Gems name for its television production subsidiary. Screen Gems became a major producer of situation comedies for TV, beginning with Father Knows BestFather Knows Best
Father Knows Best is an American radio and television comedy series which portrayed a middle class family life in the Midwest. It was created by writer Ed James in the 1940s.-Radio:...
. The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September...
, The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...
, Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
, I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
and The Monkees
The Monkees (TV series)
The Monkees is an American situation comedy that aired on NBC from September 1966 to March 1968. The series follows the adventures of four young men trying to make a name for themselves as rock 'n roll singers. The show introduced a number of innovative new-wave film techniques to series...
followed. In 1960, company became a publicly traded company under the name Screen Gems, Inc. when Columbia spun off an 18% stake.
In 1957, after its parent company Columbia dropped UPA, Screen Gems entered a distribution deal with Hanna-Barbera Productions, which produced classic TV cartoon shows such as The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
, Ruff and Reddy, The Huckleberry Hound Show, Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...
, Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
, The Jetsons
The Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
and others. Screen Gems would distribute until 1967, when Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting
Taft Broadcasting
The Taft Broadcasting Company, also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated, was an American media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio....
.
1950s
By 1950 Columbia had discontinued most of its popular series filmsFilm series
A film series is a collection of related films in succession. Their relationship is not fixed, but generally share a common diegetic world. Sometimes the work is conceived as a multiple-film work, for example the Three Colours series, but in most cases the success of the original film inspires...
(Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie is a fictional character created by author Jack Boyle . Originally a jewel thief and safecracker in Boyle's novels, he became a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television—an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend."-Literature:Jack...
, Blondie
Blondie (film)
Blondie is a 1938 movie directed by Frank Strayer, based on the comic strip of the same name. The screenplay was written by Chic Young and Richard Flournoy....
, The Lone Wolf, The Crime Doctor, Rusty, etc.) Only Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim is the fictional hero of a series of jungle adventures in various media. The series began in 1934 as an American newspaper comic strip chronicling the adventures of Asia-based hunter Jim Bradley, who was nicknamed Jungle Jim...
, launched by producer Sam Katzman
Sam Katzman
Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Born into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry...
in 1949, kept going through 1955. Katzman contributed greatly to Columbia's success by producing dozens of topical feature films, including crime dramas, science-fiction stories, and rock-'n'-roll musicals. (For details about these Columbia releases of the 1950s, see the Sam Katzman
Sam Katzman
Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Born into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry...
entry.) Columbia kept making serials until 1956 and two-reel comedies until 1957, after other studios had discontinued them.
As the larger studios declined in the 1950s, Columbia's position improved. This was largely because it did not suffer from the massive loss of income that the other major studios suffered from the loss of their theaters (well over 90 percent, in some cases). Columbia continued to produce 40-plus pictures a year, offering productions that often broke ground and kept audiences coming to theaters such as its adaptation of the controversial James Jones
James Jones (author)
James Jones was an American author known for his explorations of World War II and its aftermath.-Life and work:...
novel, From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
(1953), On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
(1954) and The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...
(1957) with William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
and Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
. All three films won the Best Picture Oscar
Columbia also released the made-in-England Warwick Films
Warwick Films
Warwick Films was the name of a film company founded by film producers Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli in London in 1951. The name was taken from the Warwick Hotel in London...
by producers Irving Allen
Irving Allen
Irving Allen was a theatrical and cinematic producer and director. He won an Academy Award in 1948 for producing the short movie Climbing the Matterhorn. In the early 1950s he formed Warwick Films with partner Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and relocated to England to leverage film making against a...
and Albert R. Broccoli
Albert R. Broccoli
Albert Romolo Broccoli, CBE , nicknamed "Cubby", was an American film producer, who made more than 40 motion pictures throughout his career, most of them in the United Kingdom, and often filmed at Pinewood Studios. Co-founder of Danjaq, LLC and EON Productions, Broccoli is most notable as the...
as well as many films by producer Carl Foreman
Carl Foreman
Carl Foreman, CBE was an American screenwriter and film producer who wrote the notable film High Noon. He was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.-Biography:...
who resided in England. Columbia also distributed some films made by Hammer
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
.
After Harry Cohn's death
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
died of a heart attack in February 1958.
By the late 1960s, Columbia had an ambiguous identity, offering old-fashioned fare like A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons (1966 film)
A Man for All Seasons is a 1966 film based on Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons about Sir Thomas More. It was released on December 12, 1966. Paul Scofield, who had played More in the West End stage premiere, also took the role in the film. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann, who had...
and Oliver!
Oliver! (film)
Oliver! is a 1968 British musical film directed by Carol Reed. The film is based on the stage musical Oliver!, with book, music and lyrics written by Lionel Bart. The screenplay was written by Vernon Harris....
along with the more contemporary Easy Rider
Easy Rider
Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
and The Monkees
The Monkees (TV series)
The Monkees is an American situation comedy that aired on NBC from September 1966 to March 1968. The series follows the adventures of four young men trying to make a name for themselves as rock 'n roll singers. The show introduced a number of innovative new-wave film techniques to series...
. After turning down releasing Albert R. Broccoli
Albert R. Broccoli
Albert Romolo Broccoli, CBE , nicknamed "Cubby", was an American film producer, who made more than 40 motion pictures throughout his career, most of them in the United Kingdom, and often filmed at Pinewood Studios. Co-founder of Danjaq, LLC and EON Productions, Broccoli is most notable as the...
's Eon Productions
EON Productions
Eon Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom...
James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
films, Columbia hired Broccoli's former partner Irving Allen
Irving Allen
Irving Allen was a theatrical and cinematic producer and director. He won an Academy Award in 1948 for producing the short movie Climbing the Matterhorn. In the early 1950s he formed Warwick Films with partner Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and relocated to England to leverage film making against a...
to produce the Matt Helm
Matt Helm
Matt Helm is a fictional character created by author Donald Hamilton. He is a U.S. government counter-agent—a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in spy thrillers.-The character and the series:The...
series with Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
. Columbia also produced a James Bond spoof, Casino Royale
Casino Royale (1967 film)
Casino Royale is a 1967 comedy spy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is set as a satire of the James Bond film series and the spy genre, and is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel.The film stars David Niven as the...
(1967), in conjunction with Charles K. Feldman
Charles K. Feldman
Charles K. Feldman was a film producer and talent agent born in New York City. In 1934 he married actress Jean Howard, whom he divorced in 1948...
, which held the adaptation rights for that novel
Casino Royale (novel)
Casino Royale is Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. It paved the way for a further eleven novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections, followed by many "continuation" Bond novels by other authors....
.
In 1968, Columbia Pictures Corporation merged with its subsidiary Screen Gems and was renamed Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Nearly bankrupt by the early 1970s, the studio was saved via a radical overhaul: the Gower Street studios were sold and a new management team was brought in. In 1972, Columbia and Warner Bros. formed a partnership called The Burbank Studios in which both companies shared the Warner studio lot in Burbank
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
. While fiscal health was restored through a careful choice of star-driven vehicles, the studio's image was badly hurt by the David Begelman
David Begelman
David Begelman was a Hollywood producer who was involved in a studio embezzlement scandal in the 1970s.-Agent and studio head:...
check-forging scandal. Begelman eventually resigned (later ending up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
before committing suicide in 1995), and the studio's fortunes gradually recovered.
From 1971 until the end of 1987, Columbia's international distribution operations were a joint venture with Warner Bros., and in some countries, this joint venture also distributed films from other companies (like EMI Films
EMI Films
EMI Films was a British film and television production company and distributor. The company was formed after the takeover of Associated British Picture Corporation in 1968 by EMI....
and Cannon Films in the UK). Warners pulled out of the venture in 1988 to join up with Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
.
In a cost-cutting move, Columbia vacated its Gower Street studio lot (now called Sunset Gower Studios
Sunset Gower Studios
Sunset Gower Studios is a television and movie studio at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street in Hollywood, California. It continues today as Hollywood's largest independent studio and an active facility for television and film production on its twelve soundstages.The studios were...
) and began sharing studio space with Warner Bros in a joint venture called the Burbank Studios in 1972.
In 1974, Columbia retired the Screen Gems name from television, renaming its television division Columbia Pictures Television
Columbia Pictures Television
Columbia Pictures Television was the second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems . The studio changed its name on September 4, 1974.-1974-1982:...
. The name was suggested by David Gerber
David Gerber
David Gerber was a television executive producer. His notable work on television included the 1970s TV series Police Story and Police Woman. Other executive producer credits include The Ghost & Mrs...
, who was then-president of Columbia's television division. The same year, Columbia Pictures acquired Rastar Pictures
Rastar
Rastar was an American film company founded in 1966 by Hollywood producer Ray Stark , who was involved in most of its productions. Its first film was 1968's Funny Girl....
, which included Rastar Productions, Rastar Features, and Rastar Television. Ray Stark then founded Rastar Films, the reincarnation of Rastar Pictures and it was acquired by Columbia Pictures in February 1980.
1980s: Coca-Cola, Tri-Star, and other acquisitions and ventures
In 1981, Columbia Pictures acquired 81% of The Walter Reade OrganizationWalter Reade
Walter Reade Sr was the man behind a chain of theatres which grew from a single theatre in Asbury Park, New Jersey to a chain of forty theatres and drive-ins in New Jersey, New York and neighboring states that lasted into the mid seventies. Known as the “Showman of The Shore,” his name was...
, which owned 11 theaters. With a healthier balance-sheet (due in large part to box office hits like Stir Crazy
Stir crazy
Stir crazy may refer to:*Stir crazy , a mental condition experienced by prisoners*Stir Crazy , a 1980 comedy film*Stir Crazy , a US restaurant chain*Stir Crazy , a short-lived 1985 CBS sitcom...
, The Blue Lagoon
The Blue Lagoon (1980 film)
The Blue Lagoon is a 1980 American romance and adventure film directed by Randal Kleiser. The screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart was based on the novel The Blue Lagoon by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. The film stars Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins...
, and Stripes
Stripes (film)
Stripes is a 1981 American comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman, starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates, P. J. Soles, and John Candy. It also featured several actors in their first significant film roles, including John Larroquette, Sean Young, John Diehl, and Judge Reinhold. It was one...
) Columbia was bought by Coca-Cola
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
on June 22, 1982 for $750 million, after having considered buying the struggling Walt Disney Productions. Studio head Frank Price mixed big hits like Tootsie
Tootsie
Tootsie is a 1982 American comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to go to extreme lengths to land a job. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange, with a supporting cast that includes Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman,...
, The Karate Kid, The Big Chill
The Big Chill (film)
The Big Chill is a 1983 American comedy-drama film directed by Lawrence Kasdan, starring Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams. It is about a group of baby boomer college friends who reunite briefly after 15 years due to...
, and Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...
with many costly flops. To share the increasing cost of film production, Coke brought in two outside investors whose earlier efforts in Hollywood had come to nothing. In 1982, Columbia, Time Inc.
Time Inc.
Time Inc. is a subsidiary of the media conglomerate Time Warner, the company formed by the 1990 merger of the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications. It publishes 130 magazines, most notably its namesake, Time...
's HBO and CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
announced, as a joint venture, "Nova Pictures"; this enterprise was to be renamed Tri-Star Pictures.
On June 18, 1985, Columbia acquired Norman Lear
Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
and Jerry Perenchio
Jerry Perenchio
Andrew Jerrold "Jerry" Perenchio was the former chairman and CEO of Univision, the largest Spanish-language company in the United States.-Early life:...
's Embassy Pictures Corporation
Embassy Pictures
Embassy Pictures Corporation was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, This Is Spinal Tap and Escape from New York.-Founding:The company was founded in 1942 by producer Joseph E...
(included Embassy Television
Embassy Television
...
and Tandem Productions
Tandem Productions
Tandem Productions, Inc. was a film and television production company that was founded in 1958 by Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear.-Tandem Productions:...
), mostly for its library of highly successful television series such as All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
and The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons is an American sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, through June 25, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of 253 episodes. The show was produced by the T.A.T. Communications Company from 1975–1982 and by Embassy Television from 1982-1985...
for $485 million. The same year, Columbia Pictures acquired the remaining 19% of The Walter Reade Organization. On November 16, 1985, CBS dropped out of the Tri-Star venture.
Expanding its television franchise, on May 6, 1986, Columbia also bought Merv Griffin Enterprises
Merv Griffin Enterprises
Merv Griffin Enterprises was a television production company founded by Merv Griffin, in business from 1964 to 1994.-History:The company was first established as Merv Griffin Productions in 1964 and Griffin's first production was Jeopardy! In 1965, his talk show The Merv Griffin Show returned to...
, notable for successful shows: Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)
Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...
, Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
, Dance Fever
Dance Fever
Dance Fever is an American musical variety series that aired weekly in syndication from January 1979 to September 1987. The series was created and produced by Merv Griffin and written by Tony Garofalo....
, and The Merv Griffin Show
The Merv Griffin Show
The Merv Griffin Show is an American television talk show, starring Merv Griffin. The series ran from October 1, 1962 to March 29, 1963 on NBC, September 20, 1965 to September 26, 1969 in first-run syndication, from August 18, 1969 to February 11, 1972 at 11:30 PM ET weeknights on CBS and again in...
, on May 6, 1986 for $250 million. Months later on August 28, 1986, the Columbia Pictures Television Group acquired Danny Arnold
Danny Arnold
Danny Arnold was an American producer, writer, comedian, actor and director known for producing Barney Miller, That Girl and Bewitched.-Life and career:...
's Four D Productions, Inc. including the rights to the successful sitcom Barney Miller
Barney Miller
Barney Miller is a situation comedy television series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975 to May 20, 1982 on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker...
among other produced series after Arnold dropped the Federal and state lawsuits against the television studio accusing them for antitrust
Antitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...
violations, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. The same year, Columbia recruited British producer David Puttnam
David Puttnam
David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, FRSA is a British film producer. He sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords, although he is not principally a politician.-Early life:...
to head the studio. He held the position for only one year. Also, Coca-Cola sold the Embassy Pictures division to Dino de Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
, who later folded Embassy Pictures into Dino de Laurentiis Productions, Inc. and became De Laurentiis Entertainment Group. Coca-Cola also sold Embassy Home Entertainment to Nelson Entertainment
New Line Home Entertainment
New Line Home Entertainment is the home entertainment distribution arm of New Line Cinema, founded in 1990. According to New Line's website, Misery was the first New Line Home Video release....
.
In 1987, Tri-Star expanded into the television business with its new Tri-Star Television division. HBO was the last partner drop out of the Tri-Star venture. On June 26, 1987, Coca-Cola sold The Walter Reade Organization to Cineplex Odeon Corporation. The volatile film business made Coke shareholders nervous, and following the box-office failure, Ishtar
Ishtar (film)
Ishtar is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Elaine May and starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as "Rogers and Clarke" – a duo of incredibly untalented lounge singers who travel to Morocco looking for work, and stumble into a four-party Cold War standoff.It also starred Isabelle Adjani...
, Coke spun off its entertainment holdings in 1987. The new stand-alone company became Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE), with Coke owning 49% of the company. CPE brought Tri-Star fully into the fold in December 1987, creating Columbia/Tri-Star. Puttnam was succeeded by Dawn Steel
Dawn Steel
Dawn Steel was one of the first women to run a major Hollywood film studio. She was born as Dawn Spielberg in New York City and raised in the suburb Great Neck, Long Island. Her father changed the family name.- Career :Dawn Steel attended New York University but did not graduate...
, the first woman to run a Hollywood motion picture studio. Other small-scale, "boutique" entities were created: Nelson Entertainment
New Line Home Entertainment
New Line Home Entertainment is the home entertainment distribution arm of New Line Cinema, founded in 1990. According to New Line's website, Misery was the first New Line Home Video release....
, a joint venture with British and Canadian partners, Triumph Films
Triumph Films
Triumph Films is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment geared towards theatre and direct-to-video film production and distribution....
, jointly owned with French studio Gaumont
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
, and is now a low-budget label, and Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment is a film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. It is a subsidiary of Warner Bros...
. On February 8, 1988, Columbia/Embassy Television and Tri-Star Television were formed into the new Columbia Pictures Television and Embassy Communications was renamed to ELP Communications.
The Sony years to present
The Columbia Pictures empire was sold on September 28, 1989 to electronics giant SonySony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
for the amount of $3.4 billion, one of several Japanese firms then buying American properties
Japanese asset price bubble
The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991, in which real estate and stock prices were greatly inflated. The bubble's collapse lasted for more than a decade with stock prices initially bottoming in 2003, although they would descend even further amidst the global crisis in 2008. The...
. The sale netted Coca-Cola a handsome profit from its investment in the studio. Sony then hired two producers, Peter Guber
Peter Guber
Howard Peter Guber is an American film producer and executive and Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment...
and Jon Peters
Jon Peters
Jon Peters is an American movie producer.-Early life:Peters was born John H. Peters in Van Nuys, California, the son of Helen , a receptionist, and Jack Peters, a cook...
to serve as co-heads of production when Sony also acquired Guber-Peters Entertainment (the former game show production company, Barris Industries) for $200 million on September 29, 1989. Guber and Peters had just signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros; to extricate them from this contract. Because Guber and Peters were still under contract to Warner Bros., Time Warner sued Sony. Sony completed CPE's acquisition on November 8 and the Guber-Peters acquisition was completed on the following day.
On December 1, 1989, Guber and Peters hired longtime lawyer of GPEC Alan J. Levine, to the post of president and COO of Columbia's newly formed company Filmed Entertainment Group (FEG). FEG consisted of Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Triumph Releasing, Columbia Pictures Television, CPTD, Merv Griffin Enterprises, RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, and ancillary and distribution companies.
1990s
In 1990, Sony ended up paying hundreds of millions of dollars, gave up a half-interest in its Columbia HouseColumbia House
The Columbia House brand was introduced in the early 1970s by the Columbia Records division of CBS, Inc. as an umbrella for its mail-order music clubs, the primary incarnation of which was the Columbia Record Club, established in 1955. It had a significant market presence in the 1980s and early...
Records Club mail-order business, and bought from Time Warner the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
studio in Culver City, which Warner Communications had acquired in its takeover of Lorimar-Telepictures
Lorimar Productions
Lorimar, later known as Lorimar Television and Lorimar Distribution, was an American television production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993...
in 1989, thus ending the Burbank Studios partnership. Initially renamed Columbia Studios, Sony spent $100 million to refurbish the rechristened Sony Pictures Studios
Sony Pictures Studios
The Sony Pictures Studios are a television and film studio complex located in Culver City, California at 10202 West Washington Boulevard and bounded by Culver Boulevard , Washington Boulevard , Overland Avenue and Madison Avenue...
. Guber and Peters set out to prove they were worth this fortune, but though there were to be some successes, there were also many costly flops. Peters was fired by his partner Guber in 1991, but Guber later resigned in 1994 to form Mandalay Entertainment
Mandalay Entertainment
Mandalay Entertainment Group is a multimedia entertainment vehicle in motion pictures, television, sports entertainment and new media. It was formed in 1995...
the following year. The entire operation was reorganized and renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
(SPE) on August 7, 1991, and at the same time, TriStar (which had officially lost its hyphen) relaunched its television division in October. Publicly humiliated, Sony suffered an enormous loss on its investment in Columbia, taking a $2.7 billion write-off in 1994. John Calley
John Calley
John Calley was an American film studio executive and producer. He was quite influential during his years at Warner Bros...
took over as SPE president in November 1996, installing Amy Pascal
Amy Pascal
Amy Pascal is Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. and Chairman of SPE's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group. She oversees all development, production and marketing activities at Columbia Pictures...
as Columbia Pictures president and Chris Lee
Chris Lee (producer)
Chris Lee is a film producer who was formerly the head of Columbia/TriStar. During his tenure, he oversaw films such as Jerry Maguire, As Good As It Gets and Philadelphia...
as president of production at TriStar. By the next spring, the studios were clearly rebounding, setting a record pace at the box office. In 1998, Columbia and TriStar merged to form the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (a.k.a. Columbia TriStar Pictures), though both studios still produce and distribute under their own names. Pascal retained her position as president of the newly united Columbia Pictures, while Lee became the combined studio's head of production.
In 1994, Columbia Pictures Television and TriStar Television were integrated into Columbia TriStar Television
Columbia TriStar Television
Columbia TriStar Television was the third name of the television studio Screen Gems, named after its then-current 1991 home video division....
(CTT), including the rights to Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
In 1994 as well, the television library expanded when Susan Stafford
Susan Stafford
Susan Stafford was the original hostess of the game show Wheel of Fortune from January 6, 1975 until she left on October 22, 1982...
sold Barry & Enright Productions
Barry & Enright Productions
Barry & Enright Productions , was a United States television production company that was formed in 1947 by Jack Barry and Dan Enright.-History:Jack Barry and Dan Enright first met at radio station WOR in New York, where...
, which included the post-scandal Jack Barry Productions (excluding those owned by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
), to CTT. The company also purchased Stewart Tele Enterprises
Stewart Tele Enterprises
Stewart Tele Enterprises was an American major game show production company formed by Bob Stewart in 1964 originally based in New York City.-History:...
. In 1997, Columbia Pictures ranked as the highest grossing movie studio in the United States with a gross of $1.256 billion. In 1999, Sony Pictures Entertainment relaunched the Screen Gems brand as a horror and independent film distribution company and TriStar Television was folded into CTT. Two years later, CPT was folded into CTT as well.
In the 1990s, Columbia announced plans of a rival James Bond franchise, since they owned the rights of Casino Royale and were planning to make a third version of Thunderball with Kevin McClory
Kevin McClory
Kevin O'Donovan McClory was an Irish screenwriter, producer, and director. McClory was best known for the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, which was the result of a long legal battle between McClory and Ian Fleming over the writing credits and later the film rights to...
. MGM and Danjaq, LLC, owners of the franchise, sued Sony Pictures in 1997, with the legal dispute ending two years later in an out-of-court settlement. Sony traded the Casino Royale rights for $10 million, and the Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
filming rights. The superhero has since become Columbia's most successful franchise, with the first movie
Spider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...
coming out in 2002 and having since since gained two sequels, with plans for two more. Ironically, between the releases of the first and second sequels, Sony Corporation led a consortium that purchased MGM – giving it distribution rights to the James Bond franchise.
2000s
In the 2000s, Sony broadened its release schedule by creating Sony Pictures ClassicsSony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...
for arthouse fare, and by backing Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios is an American production company founded in 2000 by Joe Roth, a former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and 20th Century Fox. Revolution was formerly a strategic partner of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which distributed and marketed Revolution's films. The company's film division...
, the production company headed by Joe Roth
Joe Roth
Joe Roth is an American film executive, producer and film director. He co-founded Morgan Creek Productions in 1987 and was chairman of 20th Century Fox , Caravan Pictures , and Walt Disney Studios before founding Revolution Studios in 2000.-Life and career:Roth was born in New York, New York,...
. On September 16, 2002, Columbia TriStar Television was renamed to Sony Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television, Inc. is an American and global television production/distribution subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment. In turn, the latter is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony.-Background:...
. Also in 2002, Columbia broke the record for biggest domestic theatrical gross, with a tally of $1.575 billion, coincidentally breaking its own record of $1.256 billion set in 1997, which was raised by such blockbusters as Spider-Man
Spider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...
, Men in Black II
Men in Black II
Men in Black II is a 2002 science fiction action comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The film also stars Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson and Rip Torn...
and xXx
XXX
XXX may refer to:* The number 30 in Roman numerals* The year 30 AD* Games of the XXX Olympiad, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England* Super Bowl XXX, held on January 28, 1996* A mark indicating "extra strong"* Alcoholic beverages...
. The studio was also the most lucrative of 2004, with over $1.338 billion dollars in the domestic box office with movies such as Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi, written by Alvin Sargent and developed by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. It is the second film in the Spider-Man film franchise based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man...
, 50 First Dates
50 First Dates
50 First Dates is a 2004 American romantic comedy film directed by Peter Segal and written by George Wing. The film stars Adam Sandler as a woman-chasing veterinarian and Drew Barrymore as an amnesiac, along with Rob Schneider, Sean Astin, Lusia Strus, Blake Clark, and Dan Aykroyd.Most of the film...
and The Grudge
The Grudge
The Grudge is the 2004 American remake of the Japanese film Ju-on: The Grudge, and the first horror film in the Ju-on series, Ju-on 1. The film is the first installment in the American horror film series The Grudge...
, and in 2006, Columbia, helped with such blockbusters as: The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code (film)
The Da Vinci Code is a 2006 American mystery thriller film directed by Ron Howard. The screenplay was written by Akiva Goldsman and based on Dan Brown's worldwide bestselling 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code...
, The Pursuit of Happyness
The Pursuit of Happyness
Varèse Sarabande released the soundtrack on January 9, 2007, which included sixteen tracks.-Box office:The film debuted first at the North American box office, earning $27 million during its opening weekend and beating out heavily promoted films such as Eragon and Charlotte's Web...
and Casino Royale
Casino Royale (2006 film)
Casino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond...
, not only finished the year in first place, but it reached an all time record high sum of $1.711 billion, which was an all-time yearly record for any studio until Warner Bros. surpassed it in 2009.
The Columbia logo
Columbia's logo, a lady carrying a torch and draped in the American flagFlag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...
(representing Columbia, a personification of the United States), has gone through five major revisions.
Originally in 1924, Columbia Pictures used a logo featuring a female Roman soldier holding a shield in her left hand and a stick of wheat in her right hand.
The first Torch Lady logo debuted in 1928. This version had no clouds, and had rays emanating from the torch in a flickering style of animation. The "Torch Lady" wore a headdress, and above her were the words "A Columbia Production" ("A Columbia Picture" or "Columbia Pictures Corporation") written in an arch.
In 1936, the logo was changed: the "Torch Lady" now stood on a pedestal, wore no headdress, and the single word "Columbia" appeared in chiseled letters behind her. The animation was improved so that the torch now radiated light instead of the more artificial-looking rays of light projecting from the torch. There were several variations to the logo over the years —significantly, a color version was done in 1943 for The Desperadoes, and the flag became just a drape with no markings – but it remained substantially the same for 40 years. 1976's Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
was one of the last films to use the "Torch Lady" in her classic appearance.
From 1976–1993, Columbia experimented with two new logos. The first one was used from 1976–1981, and the second one was used from 1981–1993. Visual effects pioneer Robert Abel was hired by the studio for the first logo's animation. In the 1976 logo, it began with the familiar lady with a torch. Then, the camera zoomed in on the torch, and the torch-light rays then formed an abstract blue semicircle depicting the top half of the rays of light, with the name of the studio appearing under it, written in ITC Souvenir. This logo was first used on The Who's Tommy and then used on a regular basis starting with Murder by Death. The television counterpart used only the latter part of the logo, and the semicircle was orange. (It sometimes looks red, due to variations in the laboratory development process, but according to Columbia Pictures Entertainment's official logo color coding for their various divisions, it was meant to be orange). The second logo, introduced in 1981, featured the words "Columbia Pictures" straddling the Torch Lady, who was in this case less detailed in appearance. The shape of the lady's body was described as resembling a Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
bottle.
The current logo was created in 1992, when the logo was repainted digitally by New Orleans artist, Michael Deas, who was commissioned to return the lady to her "classic" look. Deas used Jenny Joseph, a homemaker and mother of two children, as a model, but used a composite for the face. The animation, created by Synthespian Studios in 1993 by Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak, starts with a bright light, which zooms out to reveal the torch and then the lady. The duo used 2D elements from the painting and converted it to 3D.
Identity
The first model for the logo is unknown, and Columbia have said that they have no record or documentation. Women who have been said to be the Torch Lady include:- Claudia DellClaudia DellClaudia Dell was an American showgirl and actress of the stage and Hollywood motion pictures. Her birth name was Claudia Dell Smith. She was born in San Antonio, Texas on January 10, 1910. She attended school in San Antonio and Mexico. Dell was blonde and blue-eyed, with a porcelain face. Her...
: Bette DavisBette DavisRuth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
made a passing remark in her 1962 autobiography about "Little Claudia Dell, whose image was used as Columbia Pictures' signature for years".
- Rose Edna Turiello, who died in 1979, worked for Columbia Pictures in NYC in the 1930s; her husband James (died 1983) had photos from the original photo shoot of his wife who most definitely was the very first model. These photos contain the Columbia Pictures logo and show the model (Rose), with a garment draped over her shoulders and holding a torch. In the 1990s it was determined by photo imaging that Rose was in fact the person used in the original depiction.
- Amelia Bachelor, a Texas-born model and minor actress, in a 1987 article in PeoplePeople (magazine)In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine recounted modeling for the logo after having been asked by Harry CohnHarry CohnHarry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
in 1936. - Jane Bartholomew: A February 26, 2001 article in the Chicago Sun-TimesChicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
(page 5), said "she was one of several extras ordered by Columbia boss Harry Cohn to pose as Miss Liberty", and "is certain the icon was based on her likeness". - Evelyn VenableEvelyn VenableEvelyn Venable was an American actress. In addition to starring in several films in the 1930s and 1940s, she is notable as the voice and model for the Blue Fairy in the Walt Disney's Pinocchio....
: It has also been reported that the model for the (1936–1976) logo was Evelyn Venable. - It has been mistakenly rumored that Annette BeningAnnette BeningAnnette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films...
was the model for the (1993–) logo. As a play on this urban legend, on What Planet Are You From?What Planet Are You From?What Planet Are You From? is a 2000 comedy film starring Garry Shandling and Annette Bening. It was directed by Mike Nichols.-Plot:A denizen of a faraway planet occupied only by highly evolved males is ordered to find a female human, impregnate her and bring the baby back to the planet...
(2000), the Columbia logo was superimposed with Annette Bening's face. - Jenny Joseph: A homemaker and mother of two, she was the model for the logo that has been used since 1992, as confirmed by the painter Michael Deas. The face of the on-screen lady is a composite.
See also
- Columbia Pictures TelevisionColumbia Pictures TelevisionColumbia Pictures Television was the second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems . The studio changed its name on September 4, 1974.-1974-1982:...
- Columbia TriStar International TelevisionColumbia TriStar International TelevisionColumbia TriStar International Television was known as the worldwide television distribution arm of Columbia TriStar Television that was launched in 1995...
- Columbia TriStar TelevisionColumbia TriStar TelevisionColumbia TriStar Television was the third name of the television studio Screen Gems, named after its then-current 1991 home video division....
- List of film serials by studio lists the film serials made by Columbia Pictures
- Major film studiosMajor film studiosA major film studio is a movie production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box-office revenues in a given market...
- Sony Pictures TelevisionSony Pictures TelevisionSony Pictures Television, Inc. is an American and global television production/distribution subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment. In turn, the latter is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony.-Background:...
- Sony Pictures Television International
External links
- Official Sony Pictures website
- SonyPictures.net (list of worldwide sites)
- Columbia Pictures Cartoons from the Big Cartoon DataBaseBig Cartoon DataBaseThe Big Cartoon DataBase is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows and cartoon shorts....
- Columbia Pictures at Reel Classics: The History of a Logo – the Lady with the Torch