Columbia Studios was formed January 20, 1924 due to the
modest success and renaming of CBC Film Sales Co. which was owned by Harry
Cohn, Joe Brandt,
and Jack Cohn.
By 1926, Columbia had advanced to the point where
they began to open film exchanges of its own instead of operating on a states-right
basis. (States-right basis was to sell the films outright to local theaters
for a flat fee because you didn't have a major distribution available)
Also in 1926, Columbia purchased a small Gower Street
lot with 2 stages and a small office building. Sam Briskin was hired as
the General Manager.
In 1929, Columbia produced its first all-talking feature,
The Donovan Affair, which was a low budget murder mystery directed by a
young Frank Capra. Around this time, Columbia opened a home office in New
York, with Joe Brandt and Jack Cohn, as president and vice president, operating
out of the home office while Harry Cohn was head of production at the Gower
Street Studio.
In 1931, when Joe Brandt retired, Harry became president
and still stayed as head of production. In 1935, Columbia purchased a 40
acre ranch in Burbank for filming (which later expanded to 80 acres) and
continued to have a great deal of success.
During the 1940s, Columbia propered while other studios
were struggling due to reorganization problems with the court rulings forcing
divestment of theater chain ownership. Columbia had never procured the theater
chains and therefore could continue to focus on film development instead.
In 1951, Columbia formed Screen Gems initially to
make television commercials and programs but soon expanded into feature
films made for television. This division was placed under Ralph Cohn, Jack's
son and became a financial success.
In 1958, Harry Cohn died and the studio production
immediately took a downward turn. New management headed by Abe Schneider
and Leo Jaffe shifted to more UK production which produced such results
as Lawrence of Arabia, A Man For All Season and Oliver.
The 1960s brought some success with the climax being
Easy Rider, one of the highest grossing films in the studios history. This
success however also started a decline which almost bankrupted the studio.
At its lowest point, Herbert Allen, Jr, a Wall Street
banker, bought controlling interest in Columbia and took over as president
and CEO. He brought in new management headed by Alan Hirschfield and Bavid
Begelman. The change brought moderate success
In 1982, Coca Cola bought Columbia for $750,000,000.
An immediate move was made along with HBO and CBS to form Tri-Star Pictures.
Even though there was several successful releases, CBS dropped out in 1984
and HBO dropped out in 1987, leaving Columbia as the sole owner. In 1989,
Tri-Star was moved to become a division of Columbia.
Soon after the move in 1989, Columbia was sold to
Sony Corp. for $3.4 billion. Sony made a mirade of shifts and new management,
but still had trouble stablizing Columbia causing a great deal of loss to
Sony.
Sony basically started over and did a complete restructuring
and moving Columbia to be part of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Sony continues
to diversify and focus on main stream film making.
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