Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc.) is an American entertainment company that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and recorded videos) through multiple platforms. Through an intermediate holding company called Sony Film Holding Inc., it is operated as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., which is itself a subsidiary of the multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony Corporation.[3][4] Based at the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot in Culver City, California, it encompasses Sony's motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its group sales in the fiscal year 2017 (April 2017 – March 2018) has been reported to be $9.133 billion.[2]

"Sony Pictures Entertainment" redirects here. For the Japanese film company within the Sony Corporation, see Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan.
"Columbia Tristar" redirects here. For other uses, see Columbia TriStar.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
FormerlyColumbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (1987–1991)
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryEntertainment
FoundedDecember 21, 1987 (1987-12-21) as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.
August 7, 1991 (1991-08-07) as Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
FounderSony
Headquarters
10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Products
Services
Revenue US$9.133 billion (FY2017)
US$376 million (FY2017)
Number of employees
9,500 (2019 )
ParentSony Entertainment
Divisions
Websitewww.sonypictures.com
Footnotes / references
[1][2]

SPE is a member of the Big Five and the Motion Picture Association (MPA).[5]

Some of Sony Pictures' film franchises include: The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, Spider-Man, Jumanji, Stuart Little, Men in Black, Zombieland, Underworld, Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters, Robert Langdon, The Smurfs (via Peyo), Sniper, Hotel Transylvania, Bad Boys, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Charlie's Angels.

History

On September 1, 1987, The Coca-Cola Company announced plans to spin off its assets of Columbia Pictures, which it had owned since 1982. Under this arrangement, Coca-Cola would sell its entertainment assets to TriStar Pictures, of which it owned 39.6%. Tri-Star would be renamed as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE), with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Star's shareholders owning 20%.[6][7] A new company was formed in early 1988 with the Tri-Star name to take over the studio's operations.[8]

On September 28, 1989, Sony obtained an option to purchase all of The Coca-Cola Company's stock (approximately 54 million shares or 49% of the outstanding shares) in CPE for $27 per share.[9] The next day, Sony also announced that it reached an agreement with Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: GPEC; formerly Barris Industries, Inc.) to acquire CPE for $200 million when Sony hired Peter Guber and Jon Peters to be its co-chairmen.[10] This was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president and CEO of Sony during that time.[11]

The hiring of Guber and Peters by Sony to run Columbia was conflicted by a previous contract the producers had signed at Warner Bros. Time Warner's chairman, Steve Ross, threatened Sony with a lawsuit for breach of contract. The lawsuit would be subsequently dropped when Sony sold half-interest in Columbia House and cable distribution rights to Columbia's feature films, TV movies, and miniseries to Warner Bros. That same agreement also saw Columbia sell its 35% interest in the Burbank Studios and acquired Lorimar Studios, previously the MGM lot, from Warner Bros.[12][13]

On October 31, 1989, Sony completed a friendly takeover bid for the rest of shares (51%) of CPE, which was a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: KPE), and acquired 99.3% of the common stock of the company. On November 8, 1989, Sony completed the acquisition by a "short-form" merger of its wholly owned subsidiary Sony Columbia Acquisition Corporation into CPE under the Delaware General Corporation Law. Sony also completed a tender offer for shares of common stock of the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company on November 6, 1989 and acquired the company 3 days later. The acquisition cost Sony $4.9 billion ($3.55 billion for shares and $1.4 billion of long-term debt) and was backed (financed) by five major Japanese banks Mitsui, Tokyo, Fuji, Mitsubishi and Industrial Bank of Japan.[14][15][16] The company was renamed as Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7, 1991.[17][18]

Sony has since created numerous other film production and distribution units, such as creating Sony Pictures Classics for art-house fare, by forming Columbia TriStar Pictures (also known as the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group) by merging Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures in 1998, revitalizing Columbia's former television division Screen Gems. It expanded its operations on April 8, 2005, when a Sony-led consortium acquired the legendary Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in a US$4.8 billion leveraged buyout, through the holding company MGM Holdings Inc.[19][20][21]

This in effect re-united the MGM studio name, with the MGM main studio lot, although somewhat confusingly, the bulk of the pre-May 1986 original MGM library ended up at Time Warner via the Ted Turner-Kirk Kerkorian "Turner Entertainment Co." transactions. The post-April 1986 MGM library consists of acquisitions of various third-party libraries, such as the Orion Pictures catalogue, leading to MGM's 2014 remake of RoboCop.

On June 4, 2008, SPE's wholly owned group 2JS Productions B.V. acquired Dutch production company 2waytraffic N.V., famous for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, acquired from the original production company Celador, and You Are What You Eat for £114.3 million ($223.2 million in US dollars).

In 2011, the Sony Pictures computer network was breached and approximately one million user accounts associated with the SonyPictures.com website were leaked.[22]

On November 18, 2012, Sony Pictures announced it has passed $4 billion with the success of releases: Skyfall, The Amazing Spider-Man, 21 Jump Street, Men in Black 3, Hotel Transylvania, Underworld: Awakening, The Vow, and Resident Evil: Retribution.[23] On November 21, 2013, SPE and Sony Entertainment's CEO Michael Lynton announced that SPE will shift emphasis from movies to television by cutting its 2014 film slate.[24][25][26][27] It was also announced on the same day, that there will be more Spider-Man sequels and spin-offs,[28] though on February 10, 2015, Sony Pictures eventually signed a deal with Disney's Marvel Studios to allow Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Captain America: Civil War, before appearing in Spider-Man: Homecoming which was released on July 7, 2017.[29] The deal also allowed Sony to distribute and have creative control on any MCU film where Spider-Man is the main character (such as Homecoming and its sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home), while Disney will distribute MCU films where Spider-Man appears without being the main character.

On January 22, 2014, SPE folded its technology unit into the various cores of its businesses.[30] In April, Sony Pictures arranged a film financing deal worth $200 million with LStar Capital, the credit venture of Lone Star Capital and Citibank, half in debt and the other in equity to fund most of SPE's film slate for several years. SPE was originally considering a $300 million deal with Blue Anchor Entertainment, led by Bloom Hergott partner John LaViolette and former investment banker & producer Joseph M. Singer, and backed by Longhorn Capital Management and Deutsche Bank, which was held up by regulatory matters.[31]

As a result of reevaluating the assets of the motion pictures and television productions businesses (capitalized film costs, including the value of the film library mostly recorded at the 1989 acquisition of CPE), Sony recorded a $962 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge in SPE in the third quarter of 2016.[32]

On July 3, 2018, Sony accidentally uploaded the film Khali the Killer on YouTube in its entirety. The film stayed up for several hours before being removed.[33]

In November 2019, Sony purchased the remaining 42% stake in GSN from AT&T, placing it under the direction of its television division.[34]

2014 hack
Main article: Sony Pictures hack

In November 2014, the Sony Pictures computer network was compromised by a group of hackers named Guardians of Peace, disabling many computers.[35] Later the same week, five of Sony Pictures' movies were leaked, including some not yet released (such as Fury and Annie), as well as confidential data about 47,000 current and former Sony employees.[36][37][38] Film historian Wheeler Winston Dixon suggested that the hack, which exposed the inner workings of the studio, was "not a pretty picture," and served as a "wake-up call to the entire industry."[39] The hack also revealed some other documents, emails between Hollywood moguls referring to Barack Obama's cinematic tastes, a possible partnership with Marvel Studios for the inclusion of the superhero Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, which was later confirmed in February 2015, amongst others.[40][41] On December 16, the hackers issued a warning to moviegoers, threatening to attack anyone who sees The Interview during the holidays and urging people to "remember the 11th of September 2001".[42] On December 17, 2014, Sony cancelled the previously planned December 25 release of The Interview in response to hacker threats.[43]

On February 24, 2015, Tom Rothman was named chairman of SPE's motion picture group to replace Amy Pascal.[44][45]

On April 16, 2015, WikiLeaks published over 30,287 documents, 173,132 e-mails, and 2,200 corporate e-mail addresses of Sony Pictures' employees. WikiLeaks said in a press release that the content of the leaks were "newsworthy and at the center of a geo-political conflict" and belonged "in the public domain". Sony Pictures later condemned the hack and subsequent leaks, calling it a "malicious criminal act", while also criticizing WikiLeaks for describing the leaked content as public domain.[46][47][48]

Seth Rogen has expressed doubts about North Korea being responsible for the 2014 Sony hack. Based on the timeline of events and the amount of information hacked, he believes the hack may have been conducted by a Sony employee.[49]

Corporate structure

Headquartered in Culver City, California, USA, SPE comprises various studios and entertainment brands, including Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, TriStar Pictures and GSN.

Senior management team

Motion Pictures and Home Entertainment
  • Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group:[50] formerly Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group. With a library of more than 4,000 films (including 12 Academy Award for Best Picture winners), as of 2004 this unit of Sony distributes about 22 films a year under its various studio brands in 67 countries.[51] The group owns studio facilities in the United States, Hong Kong, Madrid, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Japan. In addition to the company-owned brands below, Sony Pictures also has a contract to distribute select films by MGM and UA.
    • Columbia Pictures: Founded in 1924 by Harry Cohn, Sony acquired the studio in 1989 from The Coca-Cola Company for $3.4 billion.[14][15]
    • TriStar Pictures: Formed in 1982 as a joint venture between Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS. Became part of The Coca-Cola Company in December 1987 and the Sony ownership in 1989. Was relaunched in 2004 as a marketing and acquisitions unit that specializes in the genre and independent films.
    • Screen Gems: Originally Columbia's animation division and later a television production company best known for TV's Bewitched and The Partridge Family, as well as bringing The Three Stooges short subjects to TV in 1958. Sony revived the Screen Gems brand in 1998 to develop mid-priced movies (production budget of between $20 million and $50 million) in specific genres such as science fiction, horror, black cinema and franchise films.
    • Sony Pictures Imageworks[52]
    • Sony Pictures Animation
    • Sony Pictures Classics
    • 3000 Pictures
    • Sony Pictures Releasing: Founded in 1994[53] as a successor to Triumph Releasing Corporation. The unit handles distribution, marketing, and promotion for films produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment; including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, among others.1
      • Sony Pictures Releasing International (formerly Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International)
        • Sony Pictures India: A production house established by Sony to release Indian movies and distribute Hollywood movies released under Columbia Pictures.
    • Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: Founded in 1978 as Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment. Currently manufactures and distributes the Sony film and television libraries on Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, VHS, UMD and digital download
    • Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA): A Sony division which acquires and produces about 60 films per year for a wide variety of distribution platforms, especially for non-theatrical markets. It had been called Worldwide SPE Acquisitions, Inc. until September 2010.
      • Destination Films: A motion picture company which currently specializes in action, thriller, sci-fi, niche and low-end to medium-end horror films was purchased by Sony in 2001.
      • Stage 6 Films: A direct-to-video label created in 2007. Also releases some films theatrically.
      • Affirm Films: A motion picture label launched in 2008 to release gospel and Christian films.

U.S. production and distribution

International production
  • 2waytraffic: Acquired by Sony in 2008, this television production company owns a number of formats, most notably including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
  • Blueprint Television: (small stake)
  • Electric Ray: Founded by Karl Warner with SPT in January 2014.[56]
  • Floresta
  • Huaso: A Chinese joint venture production company launched in 2004 by Sony Pictures Television International and Hua Long Film Digital Production Co., Ltd. of the China Film Group in Beijing.[57]
  • Lean-M Producers Center: A Russian production company founded in 2000 by Timur Weinstein and Oleg Osipov, later joined by Vyacheslav Murugov. In 2007, SPTI acquired a majority stake in Lean-M, with an additional 16% on April 13, 2009[58] and the remainder in 2010.
  • Left Bank Pictures: A UK production company founded by Andy Harries, Francis Hopkinson, and Marigo Kehoe in 2007. Majority stake acquired by SPT in 2012.
  • Playmaker Media: An Australian production company acquired by SPT in 2014.[59]
  • Silvergate Media
  • Starling
  • Stellify Media: A joint venture between SPT, Kieran Doherty, and Matt Worthy launched in 2014 for Northern Ireland.[60]
  • Teleset

International distribution
United States
International

Other Sony Pictures operations
Sony Pictures Plaza in Culver City
  • Sony Pictures Cable Ventures, Inc.
  • Sony Pictures Studios: The actual physical buildings, land and movie-making equipment properties in Culver City, California. Includes 22 sound stages, ranging in size from 7,600 to 43,000 square feet (700 to 4,000 m2)
  • Sony Pictures Plaza
  • Sony Pictures Europe: Offices located at 25 Golden Square, London, England
  • Sony Pictures Studios Post Production Facilities
  • Worldwide Product Fulfillment

The following are other Sony Pictures divisions that are not subsidiaries of the California-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, but are instead subsidiaries of the main Tokyo-based Sony Corporation.

Notes
  1. ^ Sony Pictures Releasing became Sony Pictures's current film distributor in 1994.

References
  1. Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.: Private Company Information
  2. "Supplemental Information for the Consolidated Financial Results for the Fourth Quarter Ended March 31, 2018" (PDF). Tokyo, Japan: Sony Corporation. April 27, 2018. p. 10. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
  3. "About Sony Pictures". Sony Pictures Entertainment. Archived from the original on March 21, 2019. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  4. Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is a wholly owned fifth-tier subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It is directly owned by Sony Film Holding Inc., a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Sony Corporation. (FY2015 Securities Report (in Japanese), Sony Corporation)
  5. "Who We Are". MPA.
  6. Dick, Bernard F. (1992) "Columbia Pictures: Portrait of a Studio" (p. 46). The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-1769-0.
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  8. "State of New York Division of Corporations - Entity Search: Tri-Star Pictures, Inc". Retrieved August 5, 2013.
  9. "Sony to Buy Columbia, Says Americans Will Run Studio : 1st Sale of Film Maker to Japanese". latimes.com. September 27, 1989. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  10. "Funding Universe - Columbia Tristar". Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  11. David E. Sanger, Special To The New York Times (September 28, 1989). "Sony Has High Hopes For Columbia Pictures". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  12. Warner, Sony settle suit over producers (November 17, 1989). Los Angeles: Associated Press.
  13. Medavoy, Mike and Young, Josh (2002). You're Only as Good as Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot (p. 210). New York City: Atria Books
  14. Rudolph B (1994) So many dreams so many losses. Time vol. 144, no. 22 (November 28, 1994)
  15. Griffin N, Masters K (1996) Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood. (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-684-83266-6)
  16. Nathan, J. (1999) Sony: The Private Life. (Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-89327-5, ISBN 0-618-12694-5)
  17. She Holds Torch for Sony Pictures Entertainment, latimes.com
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