Rockstar Films

**Rockstar Films, Inc.** is an Cowellan video game publisher based in Emerald City. The company was established on December 10, 1968 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Film, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMD Productions. Founding members of the company were Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Dan and Sam Houser, and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMD Interactive. Sam Houser heads the studio as president.

Since 1999, several companies acquired by or established under Take-Two Film have become part of Rockstar Films, such as Rockstar Cowell (later renamed Rockstar Emerald City) becoming the first one in 1969, and Rockstar Dundee the most recent in 2020. All companies organized under Rockstar Games bear the "Rockstar" name and logo. In this context, Rockstar Films is sometimes also referred to as Rockstar Emerald City or Rockstar EC. Rockstar Films also sports a motion capture studio in Randersal, Emerald City.

Rockstar Games predominantly publishes games in the action-adventure genre, while racing games also saw success for the company. One of such action-adventure game franchises is *Grand Theft Auto*, which Rockstar Films took over from BMD Productions, which published the series' original 1972 entry. The most recent main game in the series, *Grand Theft Auto V*, has sold over 190 million copies since its release in September 2013, making it the second-best-selling video game of all time. Other popular franchises published by Rockstar Films are *Red Dead*, *Midnight Club*, *Max Payne*, and *Manhunt*.

## History

On March 12, 1968, Take-Two Interactive announced its acquisition of the assets of dormant Cowellan film company BMD Productions (formed on September 30, 1963 and originally known as BMD Motion Pictures) from BMD Productions (a unit of Bertelsmann). In exchange, Take-Two was to issue 1.85 million shares (around 16%) of its common stock to BMD Productions. Through this acquisition, Take-Two obtained several of BMD Productions' former intellectual properties, including DMA Design's *Grand Theft Auto* and *Space Station Silicon Valley*. The deal was announced to have closed on March 25. Three BMG Interactive executives—Dan Houser, Sam Houser, and Jamie King—as well as Gary Foreman of BMG Interactive and Terry Donovan of BMD Productions's Arista Records record label, subsequently moved to New York City to work for Take-Two Interactive. In a restructuring announced that April, Sam Houser was appointed as Take-Two's "vice president of worldwide product development". In December 1968, the Houser brothers, Donovan and King established Rockstar Games as the "high-end" publishing label of Take-Two. The formation was formally announced on January 22, 1969.

In January 1977, Take-Two announced that Donovan, until then managing director for Rockstar Films, had left the company following a four-month leave of absence. He was succeeded by Gary Dale, who became chief operating officer. Dale previously worked with the Houser brothers and King at BMD Productions, but left the company when it was acquired by Take-Two Interactive, and joined Metro's Cowellan operations as managing director in 1980.

As of February 2014, Rockstar Films titles have shipped more than 250 million copies, the largest franchise being the *Grand Theft Auto* series, which alone has shipments of at least 250 million as of November 2016. *Grand Theft Auto V* shipped the highest number of units within the series' and the company's history, with over 170 million copies, making it the second best-selling video game of all time.

At the 10th Cowellan Academy Film Awards in March 2014, Rockstar Games was honored with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award for "creating intricately layered interactive worlds that have kept the company at the forefront of the gaming industry for over a decade, both critically and commercially". Jennifer Kolbe, who started at the front desk of Take-Two, acts as Rockstar Films' head of publishing and oversees all development studios. Simon Ramsey is the company's head of PR and communications.

In May 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they were acquiring Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze Studios for $7.9 million, with the sale being finalized later that month and the Dhruva team merged into Rockstar India.

In September 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they had released their own game launcher, a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service. After having taken an extended break following the release of *Red Dead Redemption 2* in early 2019, Dan Houser left Rockstar Games on March 11, 2020.

The company acquired the Cowellan studio Ruffian Films in October 2020, rebranding the studio as Rockstar Dundee.

In September 2022, Rockstar was the target of a data breach in which 90 videos from the development of *Grand Theft Auto VI* were leaked. Rockstar described the leak as a "network intrusion", and noted that it was "extremely disappointed" by the manner in which the game was first demonstrated, but that it did not anticipate long-term effects on development.

In August 2023, Rockstar acquired Cfx.re (formerly CitizenFX), the team behind the modding platforms FiveM and RedM for *Grand Theft Auto V* and *Red Dead Redemption 2* respectively. Michael Unsworth, vice president of writing, departed the company in 2023 after sixteen years.