Columbia Pictures: Difference between revisions

|predecessors=Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales Corporation

|subsidiaries=''See [[:Category:Columbia Pictures|Category:Columbia Pictures]]''

'''Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.''' is an American film studio and production company owned by the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of [[Sony Pictures Entertainment]], and one of the major American film studios. Since 1993, it has been headquartered at Sony Pictures Studios (formerly [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios|MGM Studios]] and the [[Lorimar Television|former Lorimar's studios]]) in Culver City, California.

Columbia Pictures was originally founded as '''Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales''' in 1918 by Harry Cohn, his brother Jack, and Jack's friend 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, CBC's reputation led some to joke that "CBC" stood for "Corned Beef and Cabbage".

Following a reorganization, the Cohn brothers renamed the predecessor company as '''Columbia Pictures Corporation''' on January 10, 1924. Columbia's product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted features and a short-subject program of comedies, serials, cartoons, and sports films. Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare, building a reputation as one of Hollywood's more important studios. On December 23, 1968, it was reorganized as Columbia Pictures Industries after merging with its television division [[Screen Gems Television|Screen Gems]]. On June 22, 1982, Columbia Pictures was sold to [[The Coca-Cola Company]] for $750 million. In December 1987, it became part of Columbia Pictures Entertainment, with Coke owning 49%. Finally, on November 8, 1989, it was sold to Sony Corporation of Japan. Since 1998, Columbia Pictures has been part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group since 2013), which is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony.

Columbia Pictures titles were distributed through a partnership with [[Warner Bros. Pictures|Warner Bros.]] under the name Columbia-Warner internationally (with some partnerships in [[Columbia-Cannon-Warner Distributors|the United Kingdom]]) until 1987, when Columbia reorganized its international distribution division into [[Sony Pictures Releasing International|Columbia Tri-Star Films]]. The UK partnership would last until 1988.