Embassy Films Associates: Difference between revisions

Embassy Pictures was founded by film producer Joseph E. Levine in 1942 as a foreign film distributor. Levine distributed such films as ''Godzilla, King of the Monsters'', ''Hercules'' (the 1958 Steve Reeves version) and, more infamously, ''Santa Claus Conquers the Martians''. In 1967, Levine sold the company to Avco Corporation, an aviation equipment and financial services company, reincorporating it as "Avco Embassy Pictures Corporation". In 1976, Avco Embassy sold off their broadcasting division to Multimedia, Inc. and became [[Multimedia Entertainment]]. In January 1982, when Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio acquired the studio, the film division changed accordingly, reverting to the previous Embassy Pictures by dropping off "Avco". In 1984, the film division was renamed "Embassy Film Associates". Lord Lew Grade (who had just stepped down as head of ITC Entertainment) was brought in to run the international unit until Lear and Perenchio sold Embassy to [[The Coca-Cola Company]] on June 18, 1985. In late 1985, Coca-Cola sold the Embassy Pictures division to Dino de Laurentiis by forming [[De Laurentiis Entertainment Group]] and folded Embassy Films Associates. However, Coca-Cola continued to own the television division, by now renamed to ELP Communications (standing for Embassy Limited Partnership, Embassy Lear Perenchio, or Embassy Lear Pictures, depending on the source) and as an in-name only unit of [[Columbia Pictures Television]]. Coca-Cola then sold Embassy Home Entertainment to Nelson Holdings International which formed [[Nelson Entertainment]] in 1986. In 1988, DEG went bankrupt and its library assets were sold to Parafrance International, who was eventually purchased by [[StudioCanal (France)|StudioCanal]], which merged the DEG library with that of [[Carolco Pictures]] when it itself went bankrupt (Carolco owned DEG's Wilmington studio and the rights to several features that were in production at the time of the DEG bankruptcy). Currently, [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios|Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] owns American home media rights to most of the Embassy film library after they acquired the rights to the pre-March 31, 1996 [[PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (UK)|PolyGram Filmed Entertainment]] library, which also included the Nelson library. [[Sony Pictures Television]] owns television rights to the film library as successor-in-interest to Embassy Communications. Sony also owns the Embassy logo, names and trademarks through ELP Communications. [[Lionsgate Films]] owns American streaming rights to select titles in the Embassy library, and home media rights to at least some of the same, by agreement with StudioCanal.