 Logo used since 1993 | |
| Columbia Pictures | |
| Formerly | Columbia Pictures Corporation (1924–1968) |
| Company type | Division |
| Industry | Film |
| Predecessor | Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation (1918–1924) |
| Founded |
|
| Founders | Harry and Jack Cohn Joe Brandt |
| Headquarters | Thalberg Building, 10202 West Washington Boulevard, , U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Sanford Panitch (president) Michael Marshall (president, Business Affairs & Administration) |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Parent | The Coca-Cola Company (1982–1987) Sony Pictures Entertainment (1987–1998) Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group (1998–present) |
| Subsidiaries | Ghost Corps[1] |
| Website | sonypictures.com |
| Footnotes / references [2] | |
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., commonly known as Columbia Pictures, is an American film production and distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group,[2] a division of Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation.[3]
On June 19, 1918, brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and their business partner Joe Brandt founded the studio as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation.[4] It adopted the Columbia Pictures name on January 10, 1924 (operating as Columbia Pictures Corporation until December 23, 1968) went public two years later and eventually began to use the image of Columbia, the female personification of the United States, as its logo.
In its early years, Columbia was a minor player in Hollywood, but began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra. With Capra and others such as the most successful two reel comedy series, The Three Stooges, 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. 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.
It is one of the leading film studios in the world, and was one of the so-called "Little Three" among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.[5] Today, it has become the world's third largest major film studio.
The company was also primarily responsible for distributing Disney's Silly Symphony film series as well as the Mickey Mouse cartoon series from 1929 to 1932. The studio is presently headquartered at the Irving Thalberg Building on the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (currently known as the Sony Pictures Studios) lot in Culver City, California since 1990.
Columbia Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), under Sony Pictures Entertainment,[6] and is currently one of six live-action labels of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, the others being TriStar Pictures, Affirm Films, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and Stage 6 Films. Columbia's most commercially successful franchises include Spider-Man, Jumanji, Bad Boys, Men in Black, The Karate Kid, Robert Langdon, and Ghostbusters, and the studio's highest-grossing film worldwide is Spider-Man: No Way Home with box office of $1.92 billion.
- ^ "Ghost Corps, Inc., a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc". sonypictures.com. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
- ^ a b "Divisions – Sony Pictures". sonypictures.com. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
- ^ "Sony, Form 20-F, Filing Date Jun 28, 2011" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 12, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
- ^ Rozen, Leah (November 14, 1999). "HOLIDAY FILMS: SCREEN GEMS; It Happened With One Movie: A Studio Transformed". The New York Times.
- ^ Grady, Frank. "THE STUDIO ERA". umsl.edu. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
- ^ "Motion Picture Association of America – Who We Are – Our Story". MPAA. Archived from the original on August 30, 2017. Retrieved January 17, 2018.