Sony Pictures

*"Sony Pictures Entertainment" redirects here. For the Japanese film company within the Sony Corporation, see Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan.*

## Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.

Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California

### Formerly called

Columbia Pictures
Entertainment, Inc. (1987-1991)

### Founded

December 21, 1987
(as **Columbia Pictures
Entertainment, Inc.**)
August 7, 1991
(as **Sony Pictures
Entertainment Inc.**)

### Headquarters

10202 West Washington
Boulevard, Culver City,
California, United States

### Products

Motion pictures
Television Production
Television Syndication
Online games
Mobile Entertainment
Video on demand
Digital distribution

### Website

sonypictures.com

**Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.** (known simply as **Sony Pictures** and abbreviated as **SPE**) 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 Sony Corporation of America, a wholly owned subsidiary and the US headquarters of the Tokyo-based multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony Corporation. Based 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 of $9.133 billion.

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

Sony Pictures' film franchises include *The Karate Kid*, *Ghostbusters*, *Spider-Man*, *Stuart Little*, *Men in Black*, *Underworld*, *Robert Langdon*, *The Smurfs* (via Peyo), *Sniper*, *Hotel Transylvania*, *Jumanji* and many more.

## 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 to Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE), with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Star's shareholders owning 20%. A new company was formed in early 1988 with the Tri-Star name to take over the studio's operations.

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. 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. This was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president and CEO of Sony during that time.

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. Said agreement also saw Columbia sell its 35% interest in the Burbank Studios and acquired Lorimar Studios, previously the MGM lot, from Warner Bros.

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 Delaware 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. The company was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7, 1991.

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.

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?* 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.

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*. 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. It was also announced on the same day, that there will be more *Spider-Man* sequels and spin-offs, though in February 10, 2015, Sony Pictures eventually signed a deal with Marvel Studios to allow Spider-Man to appear in Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Captain America: Civil War before appearing in Spider-Man: Homecoming scheduled to released in July 7, 2017.

On January 22, 2014, SPE folded its technology unit into the various cores of its businesses. 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.

On February 6, 2014, Columbia TriStar Warner Filmes de Portugal Ltda., a joint venture with Warner Bros. which distributed films from both companies in Portugal, announced that they will close their offices on March 31. Sony Pictures films are distributed in Portugal by Big Picture Films since then. Ironically, Warner Bros. itself currently distributes Sony Pictures films in Italy.

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.

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.

## Corporate structure

### List of holdings

#### Motion Pictures and Home Entertainment

* Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group: 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. 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.
	+ 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.
		- TriStar Productions: A joint-venture between Thomas Rothman and SPE.
	+ 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 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 Classics (SPC): Specializes in acquiring some distribution rights to art-house independent and foreign films as well as producing lower-budget productions geared to limited audiences in select territories.
	+ Sony Pictures Imageworks
	+ Sony Pictures Animation
	+ Sony Pictures Releasing: Founded in 1994 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.
		- 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 TriStar 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 Wonder: The former kids and family label of Sony Music Entertainment that was moved to SPHE on June 21, 2007.
	+ 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.
* Funimation Films (95%)

#### Television

##### U.S. Production and distribution

* Sony Pictures Television: (formerly Columbia TriStar Television Group) The successor-in-interest to Columbia's television division (first Screen Gems, later Columbia Pictures Television, TriStar Television, and Columbia TriStar Television), as of 2004 the unit was producing 60 titles for various television outlets globally. Contains a library that includes more than 35,000 episodes of more than 270 television series and 22,000 game show episodes under the Sony Pictures Television brand, and the television rights to the Embassy Pictures library (including *The Graduate* and *The Lion in Winter*) and also the owner of the television division "Embassy Television"—among most recent notable shows in this library are *Seinfeld*, *King of Queens*, *Days of Our Lives* and *The Young and the Restless*. Their former international distribution division, Sony Pictures Television International, was responsible for global distribution for the SPE film and television properties worldwide. Formerly known as Columbia TriStar International Television from 1992 to 2002.
	+ Culver Entertainment
	+ Embassy Row: A television and digital production company by Michael Davies. SPT acquired the company on January 14, 2009.
	+ TriStar Television: Originally launched in 1986 and folded in 1988. Relaunched in 1991 and became in-name-only in 1999. Relaunched again in 2015 as a production label within SPT.
	+ Funimation (95%): A U.S. distributor of anime.
		- Giant Ape Media

##### 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?*.
* Electric Ray: Founded by Karl Warner with SPT in January 2014.
* 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.
* Lean-M Producers Center: A Russian production company founded in 2000 by Timur Weinstein, Vyacheslav Murugov and Oleg Osipov. In 2007, SPTI acquired a majority stake in Lean-M, with an additional 16% on April 13, 2009 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.
* Starling
* Stellify Media: A joint venture between SPT, Kieran Doherty, and Matt Worthy launched in 2014 for Northern Ireland.
* Teleset

##### Television networks

* Cine Sony Television
* Sony Crackle (formerly known as Grouper Networks): Sony Crackle is the digital streaming platform of Sony Pictures. It also hosts videos on YouTube, Hulu, Dailymotion, and its own site. Crackle is operated by SPT.
	+ The Minisode Network
* FunimationNow (95%): FunimationNow is the subscription video-on-demand service of Funimation Productions. It streams Japanese anime and Japanese/Asian cinema/TV titles licensed by the company as well as several simulcast titles licensed exclusively by Crunchyroll.
* GSN: *(joint venture with AT&T)*
* GetTV
* Sony Movie Channel

## External links

* Official website (in English)
* SonyPictures.net (Sony Pictures Global Gateway)