Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American company that produces movies and at one time, television shows. It is now one of the "Big Five" American movie studios and the oldest, busiest and most well-known member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, which is owned by the Japanese company Sony. Sony Pictures also includes smaller studios like TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, and Sony Pictures Animation. The studio buildings are located at the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California.
 | |
| Company type | Division[1] |
|---|---|
| Industry | Film |
| Founded | June 19, 1918 (as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales Corporation) January 10, 1924 (as Columbia Pictures) Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Founder |
|
| Headquarters | Thalberg Building, 10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City, California, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Sanford Panitch (president) |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Owner | Sony |
| Parent | Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group |
| Divisions | Ghost Corps[2] |
| Website | sonypictures |
Formed in 1918 as CBC Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and their partner Joe Brandt, the studio started out very small. It eventually adopted the "Columbia" name in 1924 and became better known and successful under president Harry Cohn and film director Frank Capra making Western movies, comedy movies, and short films.[3] After Harry Cohn died,[4] the studio went under hard times in the 1960s and 1970s before being bought by the Coca-Cola Company in 1982.[5][6] It created a side project with CBS and HBO that became TriStar Pictures and started making more successful films again such as the Ghostbusters movies and The Karate Kid.
Coca-Cola spun off Columbia into its own company again in 1987, which at that point had fully bought TriStar and other companies such as Merv Griffin's company, which was known for making Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!.[7] In 1989, Sony Corporation decided to buy Columbia Pictures Entertainment, which included both Columbia and TriStar.[8][9] Under Sony, Columbia moved into the former MGM studios after years of sharing space with Warner Bros. Columbia and TriStar continued making their own movies and TV shows before combining under the Sony name in 1999.[10]
Columbia is known for making movies such as Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, Men in Black, Stuart Little, 21 Jump Street, Zombieland, Bad Boys, and several movies about The Three Stooges and Spider-Man. It has also helped make a few James Bond movies with MGM.
At one point, one of the only ways that Columbia was still making money in the 1960s and 70s was through its TV department,[5] which was originally the first version of Screen Gems and later renamed Columbia Pictures Television. TV shows that Columbia made through Screen Gems/CPT included I Dream of Jeannie, Days of Our Lives, Seinfeld, and Walker, Texas Ranger. The TV department was eventually renamed "Columbia TriStar Television" and is now known as Sony Pictures Television, and the "Columbia" name is now only tied to movies.
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