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TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film studio and production company that is part of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, which is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony.
The company was founded on March 2, 1982, as Nova Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, CBS, and HBO, whose video units handled video, broadcast, and pay cable rights to its products. It was renamed a year later to Tri-Star to avoid confusion with the PBS series Nova.
Among its notable releases are , Basic Instinct, , and Hollywood’s first Godzilla.
The company scored box-office hits with modestly budgeted fare in the 1980s. It also cut fortuitous distribution deals with the Producers Sales Organization, Carolco Pictures and the Taft Entertainment Group; acquired Loews Theatres; and formed a television arm. Among the various hits TriStar scored on its own during the decade were About Last Night, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Real Genius, Nothing in Common, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Principal, Look Who's Talking and Steel Magnolias.
Columbia Pictures bought CBS' stake in the joint venture on November 15, 1985, and HBO's stake in 1986. On December 21, 1987, Tri-Star Pictures, Inc. was renamed Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. following The Coca-Cola Company's merger of Tri-Star and Columbia to become "Columbia/Tri-Star", of which it owned 80% of its stock. In January 1988, CPE's stocks somewhat fell, and Coca-Cola decreased its shares in CPE to 49%. On April 13, 1988, the name of the company reverted to Tri-Star Pictures, Inc. On November 8, 1989, the Sony acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment for $3.4 billion. On August 7, 1991, under Sony Pictures Entertainment, the hyphen was officially removed from the name of the studio. TriStar became the first new American major film studio since RKO Pictures, which was founded in 1928.
During the 1990s, TriStar operated autonomously from Columbia. Although its products were mostly indistinguishable from that of its sister studio, it soon scored a string of hits at the box office with such films as Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Jerry Maguire, As Good as It Gets, Bugsy and Jumanji, and it also scored a major video hit with Danny DeVito's Matilda. However, in 1998, the company fell on hard times following the box-office disappointment of its remake of the Japanese Monster movie Godzilla, and Sony quickly responded by merging the studio with Columbia to form the Columbia TriStar Motion Pictures Group. The TriStar name was subsequently used by Sony on a very limited basis until 2004, when the company decided to turn the studio into a genre label that specialized in acquisitions. In 2015, Sony formed TriStar Productions as a vehicle for film and television productions. TriStar Pictures is currently being used as a vehicle for distribution of products from that new entity and other items from Sony Pictures, including titles from Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions.
TriStar Pictures is currently one of the five live-action labels of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, alongside Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and 3000 Pictures.
On May 11, 1984, Tri-Star's first produced film was released, The Natural starring Robert Redford. Tri-Star's first release, however, was the film, Where the Boys Are '84; a 1984 remake of the 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) picture, Where the Boys Are that was co-distributed on behalf of ITC Entertainment after Universal rejected it; the film was a commercial flop.London, Michael. "Tri-Star Bows With a Universal Castoff". Sarasota Herald-Tribune (February 18, 1984).
Many of Tri-Star's productions were released on VHS by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, or CBS/Fox Video. In addition, HBO owned exclusive cable distribution rights to the films, with broadcast television licenses going to CBS.Prince, S. (2000) A new pot of gold: Hollywood under the electronic rainbow, 1980–1989 (p. 31). Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. .
On May 8, 1984, Tri-Star Pictures secured North American distribution rights for the film Supergirl from Warner Bros., which enabled the film to be ready for distribution by Christmas 1984. On May 15, 1984, the studio hit big through its association with Carolco Pictures, with the release of , which eventually became a smash hit for the studio the following year. The company also partnered with Producers Sales Organization to handle theatrical distribution of the PSO titles, while both Tri-Star and Columbia struck a deal for film financing with Delphi Film Associates.
CBS dropped out of the Tri-Star venture in November 1985. HBO also dropped out of the venture and sold half of its shares to Columbia Pictures following a month. Despite the changes in majority ownership, Tri-Star continued ambition-laden expansion plans. Chief among these plans was an expansion of their successful relationship with Carolco; a new extension of their pre-existing deal included Tri-Star gaining theatrical distribution rights to various Carolco projects, including Rambo III and Air America; Carolco retained all foreign, cable, television and videocassette rights. Taft/Barish Productions, a joint venture of Taft Broadcasting and Keith Barish, signed a $200 million domestic distribution deal with Tri-Star (much like Carolco, Taft/Barish retained non-theatrical and ancillary distribution rights). Of the four films to emerge from this pact, only The Running Man would become a major success.
Another avenue of expansion was acquiring the storied Loews Theaters chain of cineplexes in October 1986 for $300 million, after a deal to purchase Regal Cinemas from Tele-Communications, Inc. did not come to fruition. At the time, Loews had 260 theaters in six states.
1987 was another ambitious year for Tri-Star; plans were in place to take Tri-Star from a relatively new, untested film company into a major film studio. Components of these plans included the formation of TriStar Television, and joining forces with Stephen J. Cannell Productions and Witt/Thomas/Susan Harris Productions to create a television distribution company known as TeleVentures; they also proposed forming their own home video label, Tri-Star Video, taking over from the trio of distributors (RCA/Columbia, CBS/Fox and HBO/Cannon). A full-on international distribution arm was also in the planning stages. Another distribution deal was signed by Tri-Star and Hemdale Film Corporation in September 1987, but only one film, High Tide, would result from that deal.
As a result, Tri-Star's television division was consolidated into a single operating entity with Columbia/Embassy Television and Coca-Cola Television to form a new incarnation of Columbia Pictures Television. Merv Griffin Enterprises would continue to operate separately. Similarly, Tri-Star's nascent video division was absorbed into RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video.
In addition to its own slate, TriStar Pictures was the theatrical distributor for many films produced by Carolco Pictures (the rights to only one of its films, Cliffhanger, has been retained by TriStar). TriStar Pictures also theatrically distributed some FilmDistrict films. In 1992, TriStar Pictures, along with JSTV signed an agreement with Daniel Melnick to distribute movies produced by IndieProd in order to fill the void left by Carolco, whose deal with TriStar Pictures was on the verge of expiring amid financial troubles.
Around summer 1998, SPE merged Columbia and TriStar to form the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, but just like Columbia Pictures Entertainment, both divisions continued producing and distributing films under their own names. Some of the movies slated to be released by TriStar Pictures, including Stepmom would go to Sony's flagship label Columbia Pictures following the merger.
TriStar was relaunched on May 13, 2004, as a marketing and acquisitions unit that had a "particular emphasis on genre films". Screen Gems' executive vice president Valerie Van Galder was tapped to run the revived studio after being dormant. However, the release of its 2013 film Elysium represented the label's first big-budget release since The Mask of Zorro in 1998.
The same year, former 20th Century Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman joined Sony Pictures and created TriStar Productions as a joint venture with existing Sony Pictures executives. The new TriStar would develop, finance and produce up to four films per year, as well as television programming and acquisitions, starting on September 1.Fleming, Mike Jr. Tom Rothman To Launch New TriStar Productions Label For Sony Deadline Hollywood (August 1, 2013).MICHAEL CIEPLY (August 1, 2013) Sony Hires Rothman to Head Revived TriStar Unit The New York Times, Retrieved on August 2, 2013 Sony's TriStar Pictures unit is currently being retained for "other product, including titles from Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions", and is distributing product from TriStar Productions.
| Rambo | 1985–88 | 2 | Co-production with Carolco Pictures |
| Short Circuit | 1986–88 | ||
| Iron Eagle | |||
| Look Who's Talking | 1989–93 | 3 | |
| Universal Soldier | 1992–99 | 2 | Co-production with Carolco Pictures and IndieProd Company Productions |
| Sniper | 1993–2002 | ||
| 3 Ninjas | 1994–98 | 3 | From 3 Ninjas Kick Back to 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain |
| Matilda | 1996–2022 | 2 | Co-production with Jersey Films , Working Title Films and The Roald Dahl Story Company |
| Starship Troopers | 1997–2004 | ||
| Godzilla | 1998–99 | From Godzilla to ; co-production with Centropolis Entertainment and Toho Pictures | |
| Thanksgiving | 2023–present | 1 | Co-production with Spyglass Media Group |
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