1.
The Walk (2015 film)
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The Walk is a 2015 American 3D biographical drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Christopher Browne and Zemeckis. It is based on the story of 24-year-old French high-wire artist Philippe Petits walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on August 7,1974, the film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Ben Schwartz and Steve Valentine. The film was released by TriStar Pictures on September 30,2015, in the United States in IMAX 3D and it was dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks. In 1973, French street performer Philippe Petit is trying to make a living in Paris with juggling acts and wire walking, during one performance, he eats a hard candy which was given to him by an audience member and injures his tooth. He visits the dentist and, while in the waiting room and he analyzes the photo and decides to make it his mission to walk a tightrope between the two buildings. Meanwhile, he is evicted from his parents house by his father, citing his lack of income and the fact that he is a street performer. Philippe returns to the circus that inspired him to walk as a child and practices in the big top after hours, but is caught by Papa Rudy. While performing one day, Philippe meets a woman and fellow street performer named Annie and he also explains that although he did not know it at the time, she was his first accomplice. He tells Annie about his dream to walk between the towers of the World Trade Center and she supports him and gives him a place to practice at her music school. Philippe meets a photographer named Jean-Louis and befriends him, becoming Philippes official photographer, Philippe requests Papa Rudy for tips and advice on knot tying and rope rigging, which Papa Rudy agrees to for compensation. After failing his first real performance by falling into a lake and he succeeds with the support of Jean-Louis but is arrested in the process. Philippe and Annie then travel to America, setting the date for the walk as August 6,1974, Philippe dresses in disguises to spy on the construction crews and scout out the locations, impaling his foot on a nail in the process. At one point, he meets a man who reveals he is a fan of Philippes and he introduces himself as Barry Greenhouse, a life insurance salesman who works in the building, becoming another member of Philippes team. They also meet French-speaking electronics salesman J. P. amateur photographer Albert, the gang goes over the plan several times, ending with the notion that Philippe must be on the wire before the construction crews arrive at 7,00 a. m. On the eve of the event, the gang encounters several challenges, however, they successfully string up the ropes and set the cables. Philippe begins his walk, explaining that everything around him faded once he started, except the wire and himself, and he successfully crosses the gap between the towers while crowds below cheer him on. Once he reaches he has an urge to return, so he walks back again across the void, at one point he kneels to his audience and even lies down. He is arrested on site, with the police and construction workers commending him on his bravery, Philippe and his accomplices are eventually released and he decides to remain in New York, but Annie chooses to follow her dream, and return to Paris
2.
Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group
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Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American entertainment company that produces, acquires and distributes filmed entertainment through multiple platforms. It operates as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc. which is the parent company for both the music and motion picture businesses of Sony Corporation, based in Culver City, California, it encompasses Sonys motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its group sales in the fiscal year 2015 has been reported to be of $8.3 billion, Sony Pictures film franchises include Spider-Man, Men in Black, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Robert Langdon. Sony Pictures is one of Hollywoods major film studios and a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, 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, Tri-Star would be renamed to Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Stars shareholders owning 20%. A new company was formed in early 1988 with the Tri-Star name to take over the studios operations, on September 28,1989, Sony obtained an option to purchase all of The Coca-Cola Companys stock in CPE for $27 per share. This was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president, 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 Warners 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 Columbias feature films, TV movies, and miniseries to Warner Bros. Said agreement also saw Columbia sell its 35% interest in the Burbank Studios, 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 stock of the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company on November 6,1989. The acquisition cost Sony $4.9 billion and was backed by five major Japanese banks Mitsui, Tokyo, Fuji, Mitsubishi, the company was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7,1991. On June 4,2008, SPEs 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. 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 21,2013, SPE and Sony Entertainments CEO Michael Lynton announced that SPE will shift emphasis from movies to television by cutting its 2014 film slate, on January 22,2014, SPE folded its technology unit into its various cores of its businesses. On February 6,2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment, through their legal name Columbia TriStar Warner Filmes de Portugal Ltda. announced that they close their offices in Portugal on March 31. On November 20,2015, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that they will release Ultra HD Blu-ray releases, the first set will be in early 2016 and will include film and television content. In November 2014, the Sony Pictures computer network was compromised by a group of hackers named Guardians of Peace, disabling many computers. Later the same week, five of Sony Pictures movies were leaked, including some not yet released, as well as confidential data about 47,000 current and former Sony employees
3.
Culver City, California
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Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California. The city was named after its founder, Harry Culver, as of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, over the years, it has annexed more than 40 pieces of adjoining land and now comprises about five square miles. Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a center for motion picture and later television production, from 1932 to 1985, it was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment have headquarters in the city, the NFL Network studio is also based in Culver City. Archaeological evidence suggests a human presence in the area of present-day Culver City since at least 8,000 BC, the region was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans, who held a presence in the region for over 8,000 years. The city was founded primarily on the lands of the former Rancho La Ballona, Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes, and Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. In 1861, during the American Civil War, Camp Latham was established by the 1st California Infantry under Col. James H. Carleton and the 1st California Cavalry under Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Davis. Named for California Senator Milton S. Latham, the camp was the first staging area for the training of Union troops and their operations in Southern California. It was located on land of the Rancho La Ballona, on the South side of Ballona Creek, near what is now the intersection of Jefferson, the post was later moved to Camp Drum, which became the Drum Barracks. Harry Culver first attempted to establish Culver City in 1913, the city was incorporated on September 20,1917, the city was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. The first film studio in Culver City was built by Thomas Ince in 1918, in 1919, silent film comedy producer Hal Roach built his studios there, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the 20s. During Prohibition, speakeasies and nightclubs such as the Cotton Club lined Washington Boulevard, Culver Center, one of Southern Californias first shopping malls, was completed in 1950 on Venice Boulevard near the Overland Avenue intersection. Today, it has retail stores, a supermarket, a Rite Aid department store, Best Buy. Hughes Aircraft opened its Culver City plant in July 1941, there the company built the H-4 Hercules transport. Hughes was also a subcontractor in World War II. It developed and patented a flexible feed chute for faster loading of machine guns on B-17 bombers, Hughes produced more ammunition belts than any other American manufacturer, and built 5,576 wings and 6,370 rear fuselage sections for Vultee BT-13 trainers. Hughes grew after the war, and in 1953 Howard Hughes donated all of his stock in the company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, after he died in 1976, the institute sold the company, which made it the second-best-endowed medical research foundation in the world
4.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
6.
Sony
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Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation that is headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified business includes consumer and professional electronics, gaming, entertainment, the company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony was ranked 116th on the 2015 list of Fortune Global 500 and these make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. The group consists of Sony Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Financial Holdings and others. Sony is among the Semiconductor sales leaders by year and as of 2013, the companys current slogan is BE MOVED. Their former slogans were make. believe, like. no. other, Sony has a weak tie to the SMFG keiretsu, the successor to the Mitsui keiretsu. Sony began in the wake of World War II, in 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in a department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight employees, in the following year he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo 東京通信工業. The company built Japans first tape recorder, called the Type-G, in 1958 the company changed its name to Sony. When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK, the company occasionally used the acronym Totsuko in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was Tokyo Teletech until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name, the name Sony was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words. One was the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was sonny, a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a boy. In the 1950s Japan sonny boys, was a word into Japanese which connoted smart and presentable young men. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, at the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition, TTKs principal bank at the time and they pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Banks chairman gave their approval, according to Schiffer, Sonys TR-63 radio cracked open the U. S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics
7.
Sony Pictures
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Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American entertainment company that produces, acquires and distributes filmed entertainment through multiple platforms. It operates as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc. which is the parent company for both the music and motion picture businesses of Sony Corporation, based in Culver City, California, it encompasses Sonys motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its group sales in the fiscal year 2015 has been reported to be of $8.3 billion, Sony Pictures film franchises include Spider-Man, Men in Black, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Robert Langdon. Sony Pictures is one of Hollywoods major film studios and a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, 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, Tri-Star would be renamed to Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Stars shareholders owning 20%. A new company was formed in early 1988 with the Tri-Star name to take over the studios operations, on September 28,1989, Sony obtained an option to purchase all of The Coca-Cola Companys stock in CPE for $27 per share. This was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president, 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 Warners 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 Columbias feature films, TV movies, and miniseries to Warner Bros. Said agreement also saw Columbia sell its 35% interest in the Burbank Studios, 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 stock of the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company on November 6,1989. The acquisition cost Sony $4.9 billion and was backed by five major Japanese banks Mitsui, Tokyo, Fuji, Mitsubishi, the company was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7,1991. On June 4,2008, SPEs 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. 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 21,2013, SPE and Sony Entertainments CEO Michael Lynton announced that SPE will shift emphasis from movies to television by cutting its 2014 film slate, on January 22,2014, SPE folded its technology unit into its various cores of its businesses. On February 6,2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment, through their legal name Columbia TriStar Warner Filmes de Portugal Ltda. announced that they close their offices in Portugal on March 31. On November 20,2015, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that they will release Ultra HD Blu-ray releases, the first set will be in early 2016 and will include film and television content. In November 2014, the Sony Pictures computer network was compromised by a group of hackers named Guardians of Peace, disabling many computers. Later the same week, five of Sony Pictures movies were leaked, including some not yet released, as well as confidential data about 47,000 current and former Sony employees
8.
Sony Entertainment
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Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation that is headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified business includes consumer and professional electronics, gaming, entertainment, the company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony was ranked 116th on the 2015 list of Fortune Global 500 and these make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. The group consists of Sony Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Financial Holdings and others. Sony is among the Semiconductor sales leaders by year and as of 2013, the companys current slogan is BE MOVED. Their former slogans were make. believe, like. no. other, Sony has a weak tie to the SMFG keiretsu, the successor to the Mitsui keiretsu. Sony began in the wake of World War II, in 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in a department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight employees, in the following year he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo 東京通信工業. The company built Japans first tape recorder, called the Type-G, in 1958 the company changed its name to Sony. When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK, the company occasionally used the acronym Totsuko in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was Tokyo Teletech until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name, the name Sony was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words. One was the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was sonny, a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a boy. In the 1950s Japan sonny boys, was a word into Japanese which connoted smart and presentable young men. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, at the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition, TTKs principal bank at the time and they pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Banks chairman gave their approval, according to Schiffer, Sonys TR-63 radio cracked open the U. S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics
9.
Film studio
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The majority of firms in the entertainment industry have never owned their own studios, but have rented space from other companies. The largest film studio in the world is Hengdian World Studios, in Zhejiang and he distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds. The pioneering Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser, the company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. The first film ever, Million Dollar Mystery, was released by the Thanhouser company in 1914. In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film, the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles, early movie producers also relocated to Southern California to escape Edisons Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, in the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in such as Culver City, Burbank. Five large companies, 20th Century Fox, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, smaller studios operated simultaneously with the majors. Together with smaller outfits such as PRC TKO and Grand National, the Big Fives ownership of movie theaters was eventually opposed by eight independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Walt Disney, Hal Roach, and Walter Wanger. In 1948, the government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court. This decision, reached after years of litigation, hastened the end of the studio system. By the 1950s, the components of a typical major film studio had become standardized. Movement in and out of the studio is normally limited to specific gates, Studio premises generally feature multiple sound stages along with an outside backlot, as well as offices for studio executives and production companies. There is normally a studio commissary, which is the term in the film industry for what other industries call a company cafeteria. With the growing diversification of studios into such fields as video games, television, theme parks, home video and publishing, instead the studios transformed into financing and distribution entities for the films made by their affiliated production companies. With the decreasing cost of CG and visual effects, many studios sold large chunks of their once massive studio spaces or backlots to private real-estate developers. Century City in Los Angeles was once part of the 20th Century Fox backlot, in most cases portions of the backlots were retained and are available for rental by various film and television productions
10.
Columbia Pictures
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The studio was founded in 1918 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and Jacks best friend Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924, and went public two years later and its name is derived from Columbia, a national personification of the United States, which is used as the studios logo. In its early years, it was a player in Hollywood. With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the homes of the screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbias major contract stars were Jean Arthur, in the 1940s, Rita Hayworth became the studios premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell, Glenn Ford, and William Holden also became major stars at the studio, in 1982, the studio was purchased by The Coca-Cola Company, and launched TriStar Pictures as a joint venture with HBO and CBS. Five years later, Coca-Cola spun off Columbia, which was sold to Tri-Star, after a brief period of independence with Coca-Cola maintaining a financial interest, the combined studio was acquired by Sony in 1989. It is one of the film studios in the world. It was one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywoods Golden Age, Brandt was president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales, marketing and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood. The studios early productions were short subjects, Screen Snapshots, the Hall Room Boys. The start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row studio on Hollywoods famously low-rent Gower Street, among Hollywoods elite, the studios small-time reputation led some to joke that CBC stood for Corned Beef and Cabbage. Brandt eventually tired of dealing with the Cohn brothers, and sold his stake to Harry Cohn. In an effort to improve its image, the Cohn brothers renamed the company Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10,1924, Cohn remained head of production as well, thus concentrating enormous power in his hands. He would run Columbia for the next 34 years, the second-longest tenure of any studio chief, even in an industry rife with nepotism, Columbia was particularly notorious for having a number of Harry and Jacks relatives in high positions. Humorist Robert Benchley called it the Pine Tree Studio, because it has so many Cohns, Columbias product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various serials, and cartoons. Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare, eventually joining the tier of Hollywood studios along with United Artists. Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was an integrated company. It controlled production and distribution, it did not own any theaters, helping Columbias climb was the arrival of an ambitious director, Frank Capra
11.
The Coca-Cola Company
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The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia. The Coca-Cola formula and brand were bought in 1889 by Asa Griggs Candler, the Coca-Cola Company owns its anchor bottler in North America, Coca-Cola Refreshments. The companys stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of DJIA, the S&P500 index, the Russell 1000 Index, as of 2015, its chairman and its CEO is Muhtar Kent. In December 2016, it was announced that James Quincey, the operating officer would replace Kent as CEO. The company has a history of acquisitions. Coca-Cola acquired Minute Maid in 1960, the Indian cola brand Thums Up in 1993, in 2001, it acquired the Odwalla brand of fruit juices, smoothies, and bars for $181 million. In 2007, it acquired Fuze Beverage from founder Lance Collins, the companys 2009 bid to buy a Chinese juice maker ended when China rejected its $2.4 billion bid for the Huiyuan Juice Group, on the grounds the resulting company would be a virtual monopoly. Nationalism was also thought to be a reason for aborting the deal, in 1982, Coca-Cola purchased Columbia Pictures for $692 million. It sold the studio to Sony, for $3 billion. In 2013, Coca-Cola finalized its purchase of ZICO, a water company. In 2011, the Coca-Cola company bought the rest of the tea company Honest Tea. In 2015, the took a minority stake ownership in the cold pressed juice manufacturer. According to The Coca-Cola Companys 2005 Annual Report, the firm at that time sold beverage products in more than 200 countries and this is more countries than are generally agreed to exist, according to the World Atlas.5 billion. Of these, beverages bearing the trademark Coca-Cola or Coke accounted for approximately 78% of the companys total gallon sales, the figure in 2010 showed that they sold 1.6 billion drinks every day. In 2010, it was announced that Coca-Cola had become the first brand to top £1 billion in annual UK grocery sales, since the 1920s, Coca-Cola has been a publicly traded company. One share of stock purchased in 1919 for $40, with all dividends reinvested, would be worth $9.8 million in 2012, Coca-Cola has paid a dividend, increasing each year for 49 years. Stock is available from a direct purchase program, through Computershare Trust Company, the bottlers then sell, distribute, and merchandise the resulting Coca-Cola product to retail stores, vending machines, restaurants, and food service distributors. Outside the United States, the bottlers also control the fountain business, since the early 1980s, the company has actively encouraged the consolidation of bottlers, with the company often owning a share of these anchor bottlers
12.
HBO
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Home Box Office is an American premium cable and satellite television network that is owned by Time Warner through its respective flagship company Home Box Office, Inc. HBO is the oldest and longest continuously operating pay television service in the United States, in 2014, HBO had an adjusted operating income of US$1.79 billion, compared to the US$1.68 billion it accrued in 2013. HBO has 49 million subscribers in the United States and 130 million worldwide as of 2016, the network provides seven 24-hour multiplex channels, including HBO Comedy, HBO Latino, HBO Signature and HBO Family. It launched the streaming service HBO Now in April 2015, and has over 2 million subscribers in the United States as of February 2017. In addition to its U. S. subscriber base, HBO distributes content in at least 151 countries, HBO subscribers generally pay for an extra tier of service that includes other cable- and satellite-exclusive channels even before paying for the channel itself. Cable providers can require the use of a converter box – usually digital – in order to receive HBO, many HBO programs have been syndicated to other networks and broadcast television stations, and a number of HBO-produced series and films have been released on DVD. The new system, which Dolan named Sterling Information Services, became the first urban underground cable system in the United States. In that same year, Time-Life, Inc. purchased a 20% stake in Dolans company, in the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation in France, Charles Dolan began to think of ideas to make Sterling Manhattan profitable. He came up with the concept for a television service. Dolan later presented his idea to Time-Life management, though satellite distribution seemed only a distant possibility at the time, he persuaded Time-Life to back him on the project. To gauge whether consumers would be interested in subscribing to a pay television service, in a meeting of Dolan and some Time-Life executives who were working on the project, various other names were discussed for the new service. Home Box Office launched on November 8,1972, however, HBOs launch came without fanfare in the press, as it was not covered by any local or national media outlets. Home Box Office distributed its first sports event immediately after the film, Four months later in February 1973, Home Box Office aired its first television special, the Pennsylvania Polka Festival. Home Box Office would use a network of relay towers to distribute its programming to cable systems throughout its service area. Sterling Manhattan Cable continued to lose money because the company had only a small base of 20,000 customers in Manhattan. Time-Life dropped the Sterling name and the company was renamed Manhattan Cable Television under Time-Lifes control in March 1973, Gerald Levin, who had been with Home Box Office since it began operations as its vice president of programming, replaced Dolan as the companys president and chief executive officer. In September 1973, Time-Life, Inc. completed its acquisition of the pay service. HBO would eventually increase its fortunes within two years, by April 1975, the service had around 100,000 subscribers in Pennsylvania and New York state, in 1974, they settled on using a geostationary communications satellite to transmit HBO to cable providers throughout the United States
13.
CBS
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CBS is an American commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major facilities and operations in New York City. CBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the iconic logo. It has also called the Tiffany Network, alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of William S. Paley. It can also refer to some of CBSs first demonstrations of color television, the network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc. a collection of 16 radio stations that was purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paleys guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, in 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known simply as CBS, Inc. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which was formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971, CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which also controls the current Viacom. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated stations throughout the United States. The origins of CBS date back to January 27,1927, Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18,1927, with a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and fifteen affiliates. Operational costs were steep, particularly the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, in early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the networks Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, and their partner Jerome Louchenheim. With the record out of the picture, Paley quickly streamlined the corporate name to Columbia Broadcasting System. He believed in the power of advertising since his familys La Palina cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio. By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchenheim share of CBS, during Louchenheims brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A. H. Grebes Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the networks flagship station. WABC was quickly upgraded, and the relocated to 860 kHz. The physical plant was relocated also – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, by the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates. Paley moved right away to put his network on a financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures. The deal came to fruition in September 1929, Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time
14.
Nova (TV series)
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Nova is an American popular science television series produced by WGBH Boston. It is broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service in the U. S. the series has won many major television awards. Nova often includes interviews with scientists doing research in the areas covered. Some episodes have focused on the history of science, the Nova programs have been praised for their good pacing, clear writing, and crisp editing. Websites accompany the segments and have won awards. Nova was created on March 3,1974, by Michael Ambrosino, inspired by the BBC2 television series Horizon, which Ambrosino had seen while working in the UK. Of the first 50 programs, only 19 were original WGBH productions, the practice continues to this day. All the producers and associate producers for the original Nova teams came from either England, Ambrosino was succeeded as executive producer by John Angier, John Mansfield, and Paula S. Apsell, actually as senior executive producer. Nova has been recognized with multiple Peabody Awards and Emmy Awards, the series won a Peabody in 1974, citing it as an imaginative series of science adventures, with a versatility rarely found in television. This episode also won an Emmy, spy Machines was cited for neatly recount the key events of the Cold War and look into the future of American/Soviet SDI competition. The episode also won an Emmy for editing, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized the series with awards in 1978,1981,1983, and 1989. Julia Cort won an Emmy in 2001 for writing Lifes Greatest Miracle, PBS Nova ScienceNow Nature Equinox - Channel 4 popular science series, last aired in 2001. Horizon comparable BBC2 strand, on air since 1964, Q. E. D. more populist BBC1 science documentary series, which ran from 1982 to 1999. Official website Nova at the Internet Movie Database Nova at TV. com Nova show on YouTube
15.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
16.
RKO Pictures
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RKO Pictures Inc. also known as RKO Radio Pictures and in its later years RKO Teleradio Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company. It was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywoods Golden Age, RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the companys sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone. By the mid-1940s, the studio was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum, RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio, cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewtons low-budget horror unit and RKOs many ventures into the now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history, King Kong and Citizen Kane, RKO Pictures is also a member of Motion Picture Association of America. Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1948, after years of turmoil and decline under his control, Hughes sold the troubled studio to General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was dissolved two years later. In 1981, broadcaster RKO General, the heir, revived it as a production subsidiary. In October 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer and its success prompted Hollywood to convert from silent to sound film production en masse. The Radio Corporation of America controlled an advanced optical sound-on-film system, RCA Photophone, the industrys two largest major studios, Paramount and Loews/MGM, with two other studios Universal and First National, were poised to contract with ERPI for sound conversion as well. Next on the agenda was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading Hollywood production companies owned, Kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase. Around that time, the large Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit of theaters, built around the medium of live vaudeville, was attempting a transition to the movie business. In mid-1927, the operations of Pathé Exchange and Cecil B. De Milles Producers Distributing Corporation had united under KAOs control, early in 1928, KAO general manager John J. Murdock, who had assumed the presidency of Pathé, turned to Kennedy as an adviser in consolidating the studio with De Milles company, PDC. This was the relationship Sarnoff and Kennedy sought, on October 23,1928, RCA announced the creation of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum holding company, with Sarnoff as chairman of the board. Kennedy, who withdrew from his positions in the merged companies, kept Pathé separate from RKO. RCA owned the governing stock interest in RKO,22 percent, in the early 1930s, the companys production and distribution arm, presided over by former FBO vice-president Joseph I
17.
The Natural (film)
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The film, like the book, recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great natural baseball talent, spanning decades of Roys success and his suffering. It was the first film produced by TriStar Pictures, the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, and nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Many of the scenes were filmed in Buffalo, New Yorks War Memorial Stadium, built in 1937. Buffalos All-High Stadium stood in for Chicagos Wrigley Field in a key scene, a young Roy Hobbs plays baseball with his father on the family farm. Roys father dies suddenly under a tree and that tree is split in half by lightning, and Roy carves a baseball bat from it. He burns a lightning bolt on the barrel and calls it Wonderboy, in 1923, Hobbs, now 19 years old, is trying out for the Chicago Cubs as a pitcher. At a carnival, Hobbs is challenged to strike out The Whammer, sportswriter Max Mercy, traveling with Whammer, draws a picture of the event. Hobbs also encounters Harriet Bird, a woman, who becomes smitten with him after he strikes out Whammer. Bird lures Hobbs to her room and shoots him before she commits suicide. It is revealed that Bird kills rising athletes, having already murdered two others, sixteen years later, the New York Knights sign the now 35-year-old Hobbs, frustrating the teams manager and co-owner, Pop Fisher. With the Knights mired in last place, Pop is angry over being saddled with a middle-aged rookie, during the next game, Bump Baileys careless playing results in Hobbs becoming a pinch hitter. Hobbs literally knocks the cover off the baseball, winning the game, when Bump later dies after crashing through an outfield fence, Hobbs becomes the leagues sensation, turning the Knights fortunes around. Hobbs success prompts Mercy to try to unearth Hobbs background, later, Hobbs is summoned to a meeting with the principal owner of the team, The Judge. The Judge has an agreement with Pop that if the Knights fail to win the pennant at the end of the season, to ensure the team loses, the Judge had a scout stock the roster with unknown players like Hobbs. When Hobbs refuses a bribe to throw the season, gambler Gus Sands, Mercy finally remembers where he had seen Hobbs before. Later, Mercy introduces Hobbs to Gus and Memo, Pop warns Hobbs that Memo is bad luck, but they begin a relationship and Hobbs soon falls into a playing slump. At Wrigley Field in Chicago, Hobbs comes to bat, a woman dressed in white rises in the stands, and Hobbs, seeing her, promptly hits a game-winning home run. The woman is his sweetheart, Iris
18.
Robert Redford
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Charles Robert Redford Jr. is an American actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Redford is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, Redfords career began in 1960 as a guest star on numerous TV shows, including, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, among others. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont and his greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simons Barefoot in the Park. Redford made his debut in War Hunt. His role in Inside Daisy Clover won him a Golden Globe for best new star and he starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which was a huge success and made him a major star. The popular and acclaimed All the Presidents Men was a film for Redford. The first film that Redford directed, Ordinary People, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, and in the same year, he starred in Brubaker. He starred in Out of Africa, which was a critical and box office success. He released his film as a director, A River Runs Through It. Redford won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Director in 1981 for directing Ordinary People and he was previously nominated for Best Actor in 1974 for his performance in The Sting, and went on to receive Best Director and Best Picture nominations in 1995 for Quiz Show. He won a second Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002, in 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion dHonneur. He has won BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, in April 2014, Time Magazine included Redford in their annual TIME100 as one of the Most Influential People in the World, declaring him the Godfather of Indie Film. In 2016, President Barack Obama honored Redford with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, Redford was born on August 18,1936, in Santa Monica, California to Martha W. and Charles Robert Redford, Sr. a milkman-turned-accountant. He has a stepbrother, William, from his fathers remarriage, Redford is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish ancestry. Redfords family moved to Van Nuys, California, while his father worked in El Segundo and he attended Van Nuys High School, where he was classmates with baseball pitcher Don Drysdale. He has described himself as having been a bad student, finding inspiration outside the classroom and he hit tennis balls with Pancho Gonzales at the Los Angeles Tennis Club to warm him up. After graduating from school in 1954, he attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for a year and a half. While there, he worked at the restaurant/bar The Sink, a painting of his likeness is prominent in the bars murals, while at Colorado, Redford began drinking heavily, and as a result lost his half-scholarship and was kicked out of school
19.
Where the Boys Are '84
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Directed by Hy Averback and produced by Allan Carr, it was the first film released by Tri-Star Pictures. The films tagline is, When girls want a vacation filled with fun, sun and romance, where all your dreams come true. Right who will satisfy her, and Laurie dreams of a night of unbridled passion with a real he-man. Laurie ends up getting her wish, albeit through an unexpected source. During the week-long festivities, the girls meet Sandras snobbish aunt Barbara Roxbury and her friend Maggie and they are also invited to a formal party at Barbaras house, which ends up being crashed by hundreds of spring breakers. Whereas posters and advertising material presented the title as Where the Boys Are 84. Although touted as a realistic version of the popular 1960 film, with nudity and drug references. Jeff Burkhart and Stu Krieger were both nominated for Worst Screenplay by the Golden Raspberry Awards, losing to John Derek for Bolero. The film was released nationwide on April 6,1984 and was both a box office and critical flop, earning one of the years worst film reviews from critics and it ranked #5 at the US box office grossing $3.6 million on its opening weekend. Its total domestic gross was $10.5 million and it was nominated for five Razzie Awards - including Worst Picture - with Lynn Holly-Johnson winning for Worst Supporting Actress. Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times, called the film dumb, vulgar, roger Ebert, writing for The Chicago Sun-Times, reported, It isnt a sequel and isnt a remake and isnt, in fact, much of anything. Where the Boys Are 84 soundtrack album was released on vinyl, the films title track cover version by Lisa Hartman was released as a 7 single with the B-side Hot Nights by Jude Cole. On August 23,2011, the film was released on DVD in region 1 by Scorpion Releasing. Spring Break, a 1983 film with a setting and tone Where the Boys Are 84 at the Internet Movie Database Where the Boys Are 84 at AllMovie Where the Boys Are 84 at Rotten Tomatoes
20.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
21.
Where the Boys Are
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The title song Where the Boys Are was sung by Connie Francis, who also co-starred in a supporting role. The film was aimed at the teen market, featuring sun, sand, released in the wintertime, it inspired thousands of additional American college students to head to Fort Lauderdale for their annual spring break. Where the Boys Are was one of the first teen films to explore adolescent sexuality and it won Laurel awards for Best Comedy of the Year and Best Comedy Actress. The main focus of Where the Boys Are is the coming of age of four students at a midwestern university during spring vacation. As the film opens, Merritt Andrews, the smart and assertive leader of the quartet and her speech eventually inspires the insecure Melanie Tolman to lose her virginity soon after the young women arrive in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Tuggle Carpenter, on the hand, seeks to be a baby-making machine. Angie rounds out the group as a girl who is clueless when it comes to romance. The girls find their beliefs challenged throughout the film, Merritt, a freshman, meets the suave rich-boy Ivy Leaguer Ryder Smith, a senior at Brown, and realizes shes not ready for sex. Melanie discovers that Franklin, a boy from Yale who she loved her was only using her for sex. Angie stumbles into love with the jazz musician Basil. Franklin had moved on to another girl, but told Dill that Melanie was easy, Melanie ends up walking into the nearby road looking distraught, her dress torn. Just as her friends arrive, she is hit by a car, ultimately, it seems the group has learned the potentially serious consequences of their actions and resolve to act in a more responsible, mature manner. The film ends on a note, with Melanie recovering in the hospital while Merritt looks after her. He then offers to them back to their college. He assigned George Wells to write the script, there isnt a gat, knife, or marijuana cigarette in the whole thing, said Pasternak. Natalie Wood, who had just made All the Fine Young Cannibals for MGM, was mentioned as a star at one stage. MGM eventually persuaded the author to change the title from Unholy Spring to Where the Boys Are. Henry Levin was signed to direct, the first two stars confirmed for the movie were George Hamilton and Yvette Mimieux
22.
ITC Entertainment
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Incorporated Television Company was a British television company involved in production and distribution. Incorporated Television Programme Company was founded by television mogul Lew Grade with Prince Littler, ITP put most of the production budget into producing one show, The Adventures of Robin Hood. It also distributed ATV material outside of the UK, from 1966 to 1982 it was a subsidiary of Associated Communications Corporation after the acquisition of ATV. The initials ITC stood for two different things, Independent Television Corporation for sales to the Americas, and Incorporated Television Company for sales to the rest of the world, the American Independent Television Corporation was formed as a joint venture with Jack Wrather in 1958. In September 1958 it purchased Television Programs of America for $11,350,000, Wrather sold his shares to Lew Grade at the end of the decade. During 1988 The Bell Group, the owners of ITC were taken over by the Bond Corporation, subsequently the new owners started an asset-stripping programme. In November 1988 ITC Entertainment was bought by its management, in 1989, ITC Home Video was formed in the United Kingdom, to make use of the many hours of programmes in the archive, then unseen for years. This short-lived home entertainment division would end in 1991, in the following period, ITC continued to distribute its past library. In 1995, PolyGram purchased the company for $156 million, with Grade once again returning to ITC to act as a consultant until his death in December 1998. On 10 December 1998, Universal Studios parent, Seagram purchased PolyGram for $10.2 billion, Carlton chairman Michael Green said, The ITC library is a jewel in the crown. We can now unite it with the gems from Britains film. ITV plc continues to release ITCs original output through television repeats, books, in 2005, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the company, Network DVD released a DVD box set entitled ITC50 featuring episodes from eighteen different ITC productions. Jason King, The Adventurer, The Protectors, and Return of the Saint and it was also the production company for The Muppet Show and Julie on Sesame Street which were both made at ATVs Elstree Studios and distributed in the UK by ATV and in the US by ITC. ITC got its start as a company when former American producer Hannah Weinstein approached Lew Grade. Weinstein wanted to make a programme called The Adventures of Robin Hood, Weinstein proposed making the series for ITV and simultaneously marketing it in the United States through an American TV distribution company, Official Films. The series was a big success in countries, running from 1955 until 1959 on CBS and ATV London. Although most of the ITC series were produced in Britain, ITC often worked with Television Programs of America, ITC also funded Anderson-created programs aimed at the adult market, including UFO and Space,1999. It was at ITCs request that Fanderson, the Gerry Anderson Appreciation Society, was founded, another ITC childrens series was The Adventures of Rupert Bear, the first television outing for the Daily Express cartoon character
23.
Universal Pictures
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Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. The company was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley and its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. Universal Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and is one of Hollywoods Big Six studios. Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, one story has Laemmle watching a box office for hours, counting patrons and calculating the days takings. Within weeks of his Chicago trip, Laemmle gave up dry goods to buy the first several nickelodeons, for Laemmle and other such entrepreneurs, the creation in 1908 of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Trust meant that exhibitors were expected to pay fees for Trust-produced films they showed. Soon, Laemmle and other disgruntled nickelodeon owners decided to avoid paying Edison by producing their own pictures, in June 1909, Laemmle started the Yankee Film Company with partners Abe Stern and Julius Stern. Laemmle broke with Edisons custom of refusing to give billing and screen credits to performers, by naming the movie stars, he attracted many of the leading players of the time, contributing to the creation of the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as The Biograph Girl, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York on April 30,1912. Laemmle, who emerged as president in July 1912, was the figure in the partnership with Dintenfass, Baumann, Kessel, Powers, Swanson, Horsley. Eventually all would be out by Laemmle. Following the westward trend of the industry, by the end of 1912 the company was focusing its efforts in the Hollywood area. On March 15,1915, Laemmle opened the worlds largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios, studio management became the third facet of Universals operations, with the studio incorporated as a distinct subsidiary organization. Unlike other movie moguls, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, Universal became the largest studio in Hollywood, and remained so for a decade. However, it sought an audience mostly in towns, producing mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns. In its early years Universal released three brands of feature films — Red Feather, low-budget programmers, Bluebird, more ambitious productions, and Jewel, their prestige motion pictures. Directors included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall and Lois Weber, despite Laemmles role as an innovator, he was an extremely cautious studio chief. Unlike rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew and he also financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt. Character actor Lon Chaney became a card for Universal in the 1920s
24.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
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Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the home video distribution division of Sony Pictures, a subsidiary of Japanese company Sony Corporation. SPHE also releases products from Revolution Studios, since June 20,2007, SPHE now handles its former Sony BMG kids label, Sony Wonder. In Canada, Columbia TriStar Home Video helped distribute tapes from Astral Video in the 1990s and it also has an Australian deal with Hoyts. In June 1981, Columbia Pictures established a joint venture with RCA, RCA/Columbia Pictures International Video, the partnership expanded to North America as RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video the following year. The venture distributed NBC titles, as it was a subsidiary of RCA at the time, in March 1990, NBC filed a lawsuit against Columbia and its then-new parent company Sony under the perception that the latter two parties were violating their joint pact. Columbia purchased the video rights to Orion Pictures titles a month earlier. As the lawsuit continued into 1991, General Electric, the parent of NBC and RCA, in August 1991, General Electric sold its 50% share of the company to Sony Corporation, and the litigation officially ended with Sony renaming the company as Columbia TriStar Home Video. It was named Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment from 2001 until a change to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in late 2004. As RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video and as Columbia TriStar Home Video, the company also distributed films from New Line Cinema. Columbia TriStar Home Video also distributed tapes from Turner Home Entertainment in the UK from 1994-1997, SPHE has a three-year deal with Starzs Anchor Bay Entertainment for worldwide DVD releases, with the exceptions of North America, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. On February 21,2010, The Weinstein Company made a video distribution deal with SPHE through Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions. On August 31,2010, SPHE partnered with Image Entertainment in an agreement, marketing and distributing DVDs. Image retains its own sales and marketing, on April 23,2012, Mill Creek announced that they had signed a home video distribution deal with SPHE, acquiring the rights to distribute 250 films from the Sony Pictures catalog on DVD and Blu-ray. On August 27,2013, Mill Creek Entertainment signed a deal with SPHE to distribute 665 SPE films and 54 television series on DVD, on December 18,2013, SPHE president David Bishop announced he will leave when his contract expires in March 2014. David Bishop was president of SPHE since 2006 after leaving MGM Home Entertainment, on January 6,2014, it was announced that Man Jit Singh will replace Bishop after his contract expires in March. Man Jit Singh was the CEO of SPTs Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd. who was overseeing SPTs Indian Networks, Singh however, will not leave then Indian market, as he has been overseeing SPTs Indian TV market since 2009. On July 22,2015, SPHE and Transmission Films has reached a distribution pact to release the Transmission Films library in Australia. The Australian operations was a joint venture between RCA/Columbia Pictures Video and local cinema company Hoyts and it was known as RCA-Columbia Pictures-Hoyts Video, and released many local films in addition to Columbia Pictures titles
25.
CBS/Fox Video
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These products were released in the VHS, Laserdisc, and Betamax home video formats. The company was based in Farmington Hills, Michigan until 1985, in 1989, it moved its headquarters to New York City, where it stayed until it became Fox Video in 1991. CBS/Fox Video was founded under a 50-50 venture with 20th Century Fox in 1982 when CBS broke off a previous venture formed in 1980 with MGM, during this period, both companies continued to operate independently while maintaining their partnership. A reorganization occurred in 1990 with CBS selling products under the CBS Video name and mainstream Fox titles being controlled by FoxVideo, in 1998, CBS/Fox was acquired by Fox Entertainment Group and later ceased operations. Since CBS/Fox disbanded, their rights have been brought by 20th Century Fox. Before CBS/Fox Video existed, 20th Century Fox Video released a few titles for rental only, including Dr. No, A Fistful of Dollars, Rocky, Taps, For Your Eyes Only. While sale tapes were in big boxes that were used by CBS/Fox in its early years. Similar approaches were taken by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video, FoxVideo, Inc. and its video arm. In 1982, CBS formed a 50-50 venture with 20th Century Fox after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer broke off a joint venture with CBS, that was agreed in 1980, to market videocassettes and videodiscs. This was publicly announced on June 18,1982, where they announced CBSs 40-acre film and production facility in Studio City, in the process, CBS and Fox continued to independently supply programs for the home video market, while CBS/Fox supplied films from motion picture studios. In 1985, CBS/Fox became the American licensee of BBC Video products, CBS/Fox brought large amounts of film libraries such as the United Artists films. These UA films were issued through MGM/UA Home Video starting in 1989. CBS/Fox also secured rights from George Lucas for the release of The Empire Strikes Back for $12 million on August 30,1984. Lucas claimed the deal was to prevent the film from being broadcast on television, in 1985, CBS and 20th Century Fox secured a financial package that saw both companies generate between $75 and $100 million. The deal also included the offering of bonds with the investment firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, on December 31,1987, CBS/Foxs home video rights to the a. a. p. library reverted to Ted Turner. In 1987, the company increased its rights from BBC Video after buying the rights to 600 broadcasts, when asked about how the agreement came to light, then-CBS/Fox president Leonard White said The deal is timed to coincide with the BBCs 50th anniversary. Within a month of the announcement, CBS/Fox released a definitive line-up of films named Five Star Collection IV which included 28 films, such films included Revenge of the Nerds, Cats Eye and Oxford Blues. In 1989, CBS/Fox lost the video rights to the Lorimar library to Warner Home Video
26.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
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Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC is the home video distribution arm of the 20th Century Fox film studio. It was established in 1977 as Magnetic Video and was known as 20th Century Fox Video, CBS/Fox Video and FoxVideo. CBS/Fox became FoxVideo in 1991, alternating with the CBS/Fox name until 1998 and it was renamed as 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in 1995, alternating with the FoxVideo name until 1998. They serve as a UK distributor for Pathé movies and their library for home media releases. Fox also distributed Yari Film Group DVD titles in North America, TCFHE also distributes MGM and United Artists titles since MGM ended their home video agreement with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. They also distribute titles from Relativity Media, EuropaCorp U. S. Foxs best selling DVD titles are currently the various box sets of The Simpsons. They also once served as the U. S and they also distributed HIT Entertainment releases in 2006 until 2008 when video distribution moved to Lionsgate Home Entertainment, then Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. In late 2006, the company began releasing its titles on Blu-ray
27.
TriStar Television
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TriStar Television is an American television production studio that was launched in 1986 by TriStar Pictures. TeleVentures was formed as a distribution company when Tri-Star Pictures joined forces with Stephen J. Cannell Productions. On July 11,1990, both Tri-Star and Cannell dissolved the TeleVentures joint venture, most of the series and the Tri-Star film packages that were distributed by TeleVentures were taken over by Columbia Pictures Television Distribution. CPT would continue on under Sony Pictures Entertainment, but TriStar Television was reestablished in October 1991 after CPT acquired some of the library of New World Television, jon Feltheimer, who was president of New World Television became the new president of TriStar Television. On February 21,1994, TriStar Television merged with Columbia Pictures Television, when TriStar Televisions productions were folded into Columbia TriStar Television in 1999, Early Edition retained the TriStar copyright until 2000. The final season of Malcolm & Eddie was later produced by CTT, on October 25,2001, Columbia TriStar Network Television and Columbia TriStar Television Distribution merged to become Columbia TriStar Domestic Television. On September 16,2002, SPE retired the Columbia and TriStar names from television, on May 28,2015, TriStar Television was re-launched as a boutique production label for Sony Pictures Television. The revived studio will be run by Suzanne Patmore-Gibbs after being in-name-only for 15 years, the first new series was Good Girls Revolt and was piloted for Amazon on November 5,2015
28.
Stephen J. Cannell
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Stephen Joseph Cannell was an American television producer, writer, novelist, and occasional actor, and the founder of Cannell Entertainment and the Cannell Studios. After starting his career as a script writer, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s. Cannells creations included The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero,21 Jump Street and he also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series. Cannell was born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in nearby Pasadena and he was the son of Carolyn and Joseph Knapp Cannell. Joseph owned the highly successful interior decorating company Cannell and Chaffin, Cannell struggled with dyslexia in school, but did graduate from the University of Oregon in 1964 with a bachelor of science degree in journalism. At UO, he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity, after college, Cannell spent four years working with the family business before selling his first script to the Universal series It Takes a Thief in 1968. He was quickly hired by the television branch of Universal Studios and was soon freelance writing for such other crime shows as Ironside. Not long afterward, he received a call from friend Herman Saunders who was the producer on the series Adam-12. They needed a script right away, would Stephen be interested in writing it. He delivered what they wanted in one day, his first full-time gig, in the process, he had by his own count, scripted more than 450 episodes, and produced or executive produced over 1,500 episodes. He described his early financial arrangements in a 2002 interview, saying that at Universal, In 1979, Cannell left Universal and formed his own company, Stephen J. Cannell Productions. For the first few years, Cannells office was located on the lot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, though his earlier work at Universal was still distributed by MCA-Universal. Cannells first series under his new banner was Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, and was followed by The Greatest American Hero, The Quest, The A-Team, Hardcastle and McCormick, Riptide. Cannell offices relocated to larger facilities on Hollywood Blvd in 1983, Cannell also acted occasionally, including a regular supporting role as Dutch Dixon on his series Renegade. Cannell appeared as himself in the pilot of the ABC show Castle, along with James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, and Michael Connelly, he was one of Castles poker buddies. In season three, an empty seat at the table is described as Cannells, and remains empty for a full year. In 1987, and with an exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars being a win/win for US producers, Cannell decided to shoot his new series Stingray in Toronto. So many producers were shooting in Toronto that no crews were available to man any additional productions, Cannell shot seven episodes of Stingray in Calgary with the remainder being shot in Vancouver
29.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
30.
Columbia Pictures Television
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Columbia Pictures Television was launched in 1974 by Columbia Pictures as an American television production and distribution studio. The second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems, the studio changed its name on May 6,1974 and was suggested by David Gerber. As the successor in interest to Screen Gems, it assumed productions of the soap operas Days of Our Lives and The Young. Its first produced series is the sitcom Thats My Mama and it was originally slated to be a Screen Gems production. On June 13,1977, CPT acquired worldwide rights to Barney Miller and Fish from Danny Arnold, Quinn Martins Barnaby Jones. On June 27, CPT bought domestic distribution rights to four series made by Spelling-Goldberg Productions including S. W. A. T, starsky & Hutch, Charlies Angels, and Family from Metromedia Producers Corporation. From 1978 to 1986, CPT co-produced series with Spelling-Goldberg including Fantasy Island, Hart to Hart, on February 19,1979, CPT acquired TOY Productions, whose output included Whats Happening. and Carter Country. On August 13,1981, CPT acquired the assets of Time-Life Films. In May 1982, Columbia Pictures acquired Spelling-Goldberg Productions, the 1980s brought significant changes to CPT. On June 22,1982, The Coca-Cola Company bought Columbia Pictures for $750 million, the same year, CPT acquired distribution rights to Benson. On June 18,1985, Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio sold their company, Embassy Communications, Coke also made plans to spin-off Embassy Pictures and Embassy Home Entertainment. Under Coca-Colas ownership, Embassy saw success with 227 and Married, the same year, Columbia and LBS Communications launched Whats Happening Now. in first-run syndication. The show was a sequel to the 1970s ABC sitcom Whats Happening, major changes took place in 1986. On May 5, Coke acquired Merv Griffin Enterprises, producer of the series, Dance Fever, The Merv Griffin Show. Also on the year on August 28, CPT acquired Danny Arnolds Four D Productions. Coca-Cola Telecommunications also took some programs that were or slated to be distributed under the Columbia Pictures Television banner including Whats Happening Now, the Real Ghostbusters, Dinosaucers, and Punky Brewster as well as taking the US distribution rights of Hardcastle and McCormick from Colex. During the fall of 1986, the sitcom Designing Women began a successful run on CBS. The same year, Tri-Star Pictures formed Tri-Star Television and produced the short-lived series Downtown, Tri-Star produced more series in 1987, Take Five, Nothing in Common, My Two Dads, Werewolf, and Buck James
31.
Columbia TriStar Television
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Columbia TriStar Television was an American television studio that was active from 1994 to 2002. After the merger, Columbia Pictures Television Distribution was renamed as Columbia TriStar Television Distribution, expanding its television library in 1994, SPE acquired Stewart Television. Its global subsidiary, Columbia TriStar International Television, distributed Sonys programs across the globe and it was created in 1992 by merging Columbia Pictures International Television with TriStar Television. This was also the launch of the Columbia TriStar Television Group a year later, in 1996, CTT launched their own animation division, Columbia TriStar Childrens Television. The name was changed in 1997 to Adelaide Productions, within dismantling of Columbia Pictures Television in 2001 and TriStar Television in 1999, these studios were folded into Columbia TriStar Television. In 1998, it made a partnership with Global Maritime Group to create the company called Global Entertainment Productions GmbH & Co, medien KG used for copyright purposes. In 1999, they went back to the old way and ELP, on October 25,2001, CTT and CTTD merged to form Columbia TriStar Domestic Television. Some shows continued using the CTDT name, many stopped using it in November 2002, while Hollywood Squares continued using it until early 2003
32.
Carolco Pictures
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The company was founded through the partnership of two film investors, Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna. The two were hailed by Newsweek as some of the most successful independent producers, by the age of 25, Vajna went from wig-maker to the owner of two Hong Kong theaters. Then, Vajna ventured into the production and distribution of feature films, One of Vajnas early productions was a 1973 martial-arts film entitled The Deadly China Doll which made $3.7 million worldwide from a $100,000 budget. Vajna was already a film sales agent in the Middle East by the time he turned 18 and their goal was to focus on film sales, eventually it went into financing low-budget films. Their earliest films were produced by American International Pictures and ITC Entertainment with Carolcos financial support, the name Carolco was purchased from a defunct company based in Panama, and according to Kassar, it has no meaning. Carolcos first major success was First Blood, an adaptation of David Morrells novel, the risk paid off after First Blood made $120 million worldwide, and placed Carolco among the major players in Hollywood. The sequel Rambo, First Blood Part II, was timed for the 10th anniversary of the United States bailout from Vietnam, that event garnered publicity for the new film, which also became a hit. Also in 1985, Carolco began a deal with then-fledgling studio TriStar Pictures with the film Rambo. TriStar released the majority of Carolcos films from that point on in the U. S. Carolco entered home video distribution as well. Independent video distributor International Video Entertainment was going through difficulties and was near bankruptcy. In 1986, Carolco purchased IVE in the hopes of turning the company around, the deal was finalized a year later. IVE merged with another distributor, Lieberman, and became LIVE Entertainment in 1988, on August 28,1987, Carolco acquired television syndicator Orbis Communications for $15.4 million and initiated television production and distribution. They also purchased the former De Laurentiis Entertainment Group production facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, jose Menendez was a member of the Board of Directors of Carolco until August 1989, when he and his wife were murdered by their sons Lyle and Erik Menendez. Vajna sold his share of Carolco in 1989 due to increasing differences between Kassar over the direction of the company and that November, Vajna formed Cinergi Pictures, with The Walt Disney Company as a distribution partner. In 1990, Carolco acquired the rights to the Terminator franchise from Hemdale Film Corporation, the company re-hired Terminator director James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in a multi-million-dollar budgeted sequel, Terminator 2, Judgment Day. It was the film of the year and the most successful film in Carolcos history. Halfway through the year, Carolco entered into a joint venture with New Line Cinema to start Seven Arts, Carolco struggled for some years to secure the rights to Spider-Man, a property that Cameron was keen to produce as a film. Plans fell through, although it would eventually be made as a Sam Raimi film for Columbia Pictures, toward the end of shooting True Lies, Variety carried the announcement that Carolco had received a completed screenplay from Cameron
33.
Cliffhanger (film)
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Cliffhanger is a 1993 American action adventure film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, and John Lithgow. Based on a concept by climber John Long, the film follows Gabe, the film earned $255 million worldwide. As they try to rescue Sarah, part of her harness breaks, and though Gabe is able to grab her, her gloved hand slips out, Hal blames Gabe for Sarahs death and Gabe is overcome with guilt, taking an extended leave. Eight months later, Gabe returns to the station to gather his remaining possessions. While there, they receive a call from a group of stranded climbers. Hal goes to locate the climbers and Jessie is able to convince Gabe to help out, Hal remains bitter towards Gabe over Sarahs death, at one point threatening to send Gabe over a ledge. When they find the climbers, they discover the distress call was a ruse and are taken prisoner by former Military Intelligence operative Eric Qualen and several mercenaries. Qualen, along with turncoat U. S. Treasury agent Richard Travers, were able to steal three suitcases full of uncirculated bills valuing over $100 million. Their escape plan backfired, sending their plane crashing into the mountain, at gunpoint, Gabe leads them to the first case, located at the top of a steep rock face. They force Gabe to tether himself to reach it, and Gabe uses the opportunity to escape, the mercenaries attempt to fire on Gabe, which causes an avalanche that kills one of their members. When they see the money from the first case fluttering away, Qualen believes Gabe is dead, Gabe races ahead to find Jessie at an abandoned cabin. They recover old mountaineering gear to reach the case before Qualen does. By the time Qualen arrives, Gabe and Jessie have emptied the case, Qualen orders his men to split up, allowing Gabe to dispatch two more of Qualens men. Gabe attempts to call for help from Frank, their helicopter pilot, on one of the mercenaries radios. Gabe and Jessie escape the debris in time. Elsewhere, when Hal sees two friends, Evan and Brett, he warns them away before Qualen orders his men to open fire, Brett is killed while Evan is wounded, though he manages to ski off the mountain and parachute to safety. Night falls on the mountain and both groups take shelter, Frank, having not heard from Gabe or the others, scouts the mountain in the helicopter, spots Evans parachute, and is able to get him to safety while contacting the authorities. When morning breaks, Gabe and Jessie beat Qualen to the last case, meanwhile, the mercenaries flag down Frank in the helicopter, and by the time he realizes its a trap it is too late
34.
FilmDistrict
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FilmDistrict Distribution, LLC was an American motion picture company based in Los Angeles. It specialized in acquisitions, distribution, production, and financing, FilmDistrict was founded in August 2010 by Peter Schlessel in partnership with Graham King and Timothy Headington. FilmDistrict, unfortunately, was dissolved into Focus Features in 2014, Soul Surfer, Looper, Evil Dead and Pompeii were retained by TriStar Pictures after 2014. FilmDistrict acquired and released between four and eight wide release, commercial titles per year and this includes select titles from GK Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions. In December 2010, FilmDistrict and Netflix signed a Pay-TV deal, FilmDistrict partnered with TriStar Pictures on select films starting with Soul Surfer and Looper. FilmDistricts CEO Peter Schlessel also made alternative arrangements for their film releases. In 2012, Schlessel closed a distribution deal for their 2012 films to go through Tom Ortenberg’s Open Road Films. Open Road released Lockout, the Luc Besson-produced sci-fi action movie that stars Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace, Open Road also released the Red Dawn remake on November 21,2012. On Open Roads official website they list Playing The Field as the third film, on March 23,2012, Peter Schlessel announced that FilmDistrict hired Christine Birch as President of Marketing as the company rebuilt its distribution team. She worked on The Help, Real Steel and War Horse when she was at DreamWorks Pictures, on April 12,2012, Schlessel announced Jim Orr has joined FilmDistrict as the new President of Distribution. He held similar positions when he was at MGM and Paramount Pictures, at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, FilmDistrict bought the U. S. rights for romantic thriller Dead Man Down and, from Intrepid Pictures, Oculus. On May 31,2012, they have hired three new executives, Tracy Pollard, Brad Goldberg, and Anna Baxter, FilmDistrict also announced that Adrian Alperovich has been promoted from President of Acquisitions and Operations to COO. On June 25,2012 FilmDistrict announced they have hired Elissa Greer as Senior Vice President of Publicity. On October 2,2013, it was announced that Peter Schlessel would be replacing James Schamus as CEO of Focus Features effective January 2014, future FilmDistrict titles will be absorbed and released under Focus Features, the first being That Awkward Moment. FilmDistricts final film credit is Paul W. S. Andersons Pompeii, TriStar Pictures handled the U. S. distribution. High Top Releasing later co-released Eli Roths The Green Inferno with Blumhouse Tilt and Focus Features owner, official website FilmDistrict at the Internet Movie Database
35.
Elysium (film)
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Elysium is a 2013 American science fiction film produced, written and directed by Neill Blomkamp. It stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, the film takes place on both a ravaged Earth, and a luxurious space habitat called Elysium. The film was released on August 9,2013 by TriStar Pictures and it was a modest success and received generally positive reviews from critics, even though many considered it a disappointment after Blomkamps first film District 9. Elysium was released on DVD and Blu-ray discs in Region 1 on December 17,2013, in 2154, Earth is overpopulated and polluted. Most of the citizens live in poverty, on the edge of starvation. The rich and powerful live on Elysium — a gigantic space habitat located in Earths orbit, Elysium is technologically advanced with some of its technology including Med-Bays, medical machines that can cure all diseases, reverse the aging process, and regenerate new body parts. A long-running feud exists between the residents of Elysium and the citizens of Earth, who want Elysian technology to cure their medical ailments. During an industrial accident at the factory, Max is trapped in a chamber and is hit by a dose of radiation. After being rescued, he is informed that he has five days to live before succumbing to radiation poisoning. Desperate for a cure, he and his friend Julio seek help from a smuggler named Spider to get him to Elysium. While two of the shuttles are shot down in space, killing everyone on board, the shuttle makes it. Elysian President Patel reprimands her for her immoral and unsubtle methods, regarded as a loose cannon, Kruger is dismissed from service. Delacourt, vowing to protect Elysium and her own power, bargains with John Carlyle to create a program that can override Elysiums computer core to give her the Presidency, Carlyle stores the reboot program in his brain for transport to Elysium and encrypts it with a lethal protection program. Spider agrees to get Max to Elysium if he can steal financial information from Carlyle, to assist him, Spiders men surgically attach a powered exoskeleton to Max. With Julio and a team of Spiders men, Max shoots down Carlyles ship, Max downloads the program to his suits neural implant but realizes that the encryption makes it unusable. Alerted to the theft by Carlyles medical implant, Delacourt secretly reinstates Kruger. In the ensuing shootout, Julio is killed and Max is wounded and he reaches out to his childhood friend Frey, now a nurse, whose daughter Matilda has leukemia. Frey begs Max to take Matilda to Elysium to be cured, Delacourt orders an airspace lockdown over Los Angeles to buy enough time to recover Carlyles program
36.
The Mask of Zorro
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The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the character of the masked outlaw Zorro created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson. The film features the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega, escaping from prison to find his long-lost daughter and he is aided by his successor, who is pursuing his own vendetta against the governors right-hand man while falling in love with de la Vegas daughter. Producer Steven Spielberg had initially developed the film for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez, Salomon cast Sean Connery as Don Diego de la Vega, while Rodriguez brought Banderas in the lead role. Connery dropped out and was replaced with Hopkins, and The Mask of Zorro began filming in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, the film was released in the United States on July 17,1998 to financial and critical success. The Legend of Zorro, an also starring Banderas and Zeta-Jones and directed by Campbell, was released in 2005. Don Rafael Montero, the governor of the region, learns of De La Vegas alter ego. De La Vegas wife is killed during the scuffle, Montero imprisons De La Vega and takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own. Twenty years later Montero returns to California as a civilian, alongside Elena, Monteros reappearance motivates De La Vega to escape from prison. He encounters a thief, Alejandro Murrieta, who, as a child, De La Vega decides that fate has brought them together, and agrees to make Alejandro his protégé, grooming him to be the new Zorro. While still being trained, Alejandro steals a black stallion resembling Tornado from the local garrison, De La Vega scolds Alejandro, claiming that Zorro was a servant of the people, not a thief and adventurer. He challenges Alejandro to gain Monteros trust instead, Alejandro poses as a visiting nobleman named Don Alejandro del Castillo y García, with De La Vega as his servant, and attends a party at Monteros hacienda. At the party he gains Elenas admiration and enough of Monteros trust to be invited to a meeting where several other noblemen are present. Montero hints at a plan to retake California for the Dons by buying it from General Santa Anna, Montero takes Alejandro and the noblemen to a secret gold mine known as El Dorado, where peasants and prisoners are used for slave labor. Montero plans to buy California from Santa Anna using gold mined from Santa Annas own land, De La Vega uses this opportunity to become closer to Elena, though he identifies himself as Bernardo the servant, learning that Montero told Elena that her mother died in childbirth. While walking in a market, Elena meets the woman who was her nanny who tells Elena her parents real identity, De La Vega sends Alejandro, dressed as Zorro, to steal Monteros map leading to the gold mine. Zorro duels Montero, Love, and their guards at the hacienda, when Zorro escapes, Elena attempts to retrieve Monteros map from the swordsman, but he seduces her, leading to a passionate kiss before he flees. Terrified of Santa Annas retribution if he discovers that he is being paid with his own gold, Montero, at Loves urging, decides to destroy the mine, De La Vega tells Alejandro to release the workers on his own so that De La Vega can reclaim Elena
37.
20th Century Fox
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Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is an American film studio currently owned by 21st Century Fox. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios and is located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, the studio was formerly owned by News Corporation. 20th Century Fox is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2015, 20th Century Fox celebrated its 80th anniversary as a studio. Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, the studios biggest star, Will Rogers, died in a plane crash weeks after the merger. Its leading female star, Janet Gaynor, was fading in popularity and promising leading men James Dunn, at first, it was expected that the new company was originally to be called Fox-20th Century, even though 20th Century was the senior partner in the merger. However, 20th Century brought more to the bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck, the new company, 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31,1935, the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Schenck became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, while Kent remained as President, Zanuck became Vice President in Charge of Production, replacing Foxs longtime production chief Winfield Sheehan. The company established a training school. The contracts included an option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, 20th Century Fox claimed to have founded in 1915. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary, however, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. The companys films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their credits as well as its opening fanfare. Also on the Fox payroll he found two players who he built up into the studios leading assets, Alice Faye and seven-year-old Shirley Temple, favoring popular biographies and musicals, Zanuck built Fox back to profitability. Thanks to record attendance during World War II, Fox overtook RKO, while Zanuck went off for eighteen months war service, junior partner William Goetz kept profits high by going for light entertainment. The studios—indeed the industrys—biggest star was creamy blonde Betty Grable, in 1942, Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. Together with Zanuck, who returned in 1943, they intended to make Foxs output more serious-minded. During the next few years, with pictures like The Razors Edge, Wilson, Gentlemans Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang, and Pinky, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams Leave Her to Heaven, starring Gene Tierney and they also made the 1958 film version of South Pacific
38.
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions
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Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions is a specialty film division of Sony Pictures. The company specializes in acquiring and producing films for a variety of distribution platforms. SPWA was formerly a division of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, originally being called as Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group, the groups name was changed to Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions in late 2010. The group had sometimes been called Sony Pictures Entertainment Worldwide Acquisitions Group, on February 21,2010, The Weinstein Company made a deal with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releasing the DVDs through Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group. TWC then shifted its home entertainment output to Anchor Bay Entertainment on January 4,2011 when theyve acquired 25% of Starz Media, SPWA produces and acquires about 60 films per year, usually through Stage 6 Films, Affirm Films, and Destination Films
39.
Pegasus
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Pegasus is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god and he was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing when his mother was decapitated by Perseus. Greco-Roman poets write about his ascent to heaven after his birth and his obeisance to Zeus, king of the gods, friend of the Muses, Pegasus is the creator of Hippocrene, the fountain on Mt. Helicon. He was captured by the Greek hero Bellerophon near the fountain Peirene with the help of Athena, Pegasus allows the hero to ride him to defeat a monster, the Chimera, before realizing many other exploits. His rider, however, falls off his back trying to reach Mount Olympus, Zeus transformed him into the constellation Pegasus and placed him up in the sky. Hypotheses have been proposed regarding its relationship with the Muses, the gods Athena, Poseidon, Zeus, Apollo, the symbolism of Pegasus varies with time. Pegasus is the subject of a rich iconography, especially through the ancient Greek pottery and paintings. The poet Hesiod presents an etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē spring, well, the pegai of Okeanos. A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian pihassas, meaning lightning, and Pihassassi, the proponents of this etymology adduce Pegasus role, reported as early as Hesiod, as bringer of thunderbolts to Zeus. It was first suggested in 1952 and remains widely accepted, according to legend, everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring spring burst forth. Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him, Hesiod also says Pegasus carried thunderbolts for Zeus. In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, they were born of the Earth, a variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusas blood, pain and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making. The last version bears resemblance to Hesiods account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when Uranuss severed genitals were cast into the sea by Cronus, Pegasus aided the hero Bellerophon in his fight against both the Chimera. The next morning, still clutching the bridle, he found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring and caught Pegasus, michauds Biographie universelle relates that when Pegasus was born, he flew to where thunder and lightning are released. Then, according to versions of the myth, Athena tamed him and gave him to Perseus. In fact Pegasus is an addition to the story of Perseus. Pegasus and Athena left Bellerophon and continued to Olympus where he was stabled with Zeus other steeds, because of his faithful service to Zeus, he was honoured with transformation into a constellation
40.
Sydney Pollack
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Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 20 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 films or shows, some of his other best known works include Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor and Absence of Malice. His subsequent films included Havana, The Firm, The Interpreter, Sydney Pollack was born in Lafayette, Indiana, to a family of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, the son of Rebecca and David Pollack, a semi-professional boxer and pharmacist. The family relocated to South Bend and his parents divorced when he was young and his mother, an alcoholic with emotional problems, died at the age of 37 while Pollack was a student. Despite earlier plans to attend college and then school, Pollack left Indiana for New York City soon after finishing high school at age 17. Pollack studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse from 1952–54, after two years army service, ending in 1958, he returned to the Playhouse at Meisner’s invitation to become his assistant. In 1960, John Frankenheimer, a friend of Pollack, asked him to come to Los Angeles in order to work as a coach for the child actors on Frankenheimers first big picture. It was during this time that Pollack met Burt Lancaster who encouraged the actor to try directing. Pollack played a director in The Twilight Zone episode The Trouble with Templeton in 1961, but he found his real success in television in the 1960s by directing episodes of series, such as The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. After doing TV he made the jump into film with a string of movies that drew public attention and his film-directing debut was The Slender Thread. Over time, Pollacks films received a total of 48 Academy Award nominations and his first Oscar nomination was for his 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Dont They. and his second in 1982 for Tootsie. For his 1985 film Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, only Young and Lange won Oscars for their performances in one of Pollacks films. His disputes with Hoffman during the filming of Tootsie became well known, eventually Hoffman began pushing the idea that Pollack play the role of his agent, and Pollack reluctantly agreed despite not having had any film roles in 20 years. Their off-screen relationship added authenticity to their scenes in the movie, Pollack subsequently took on more acting roles in addition to producing and directing. He appeared as himself in the documentary One Six Right, describing his joy in owning and piloting his Cessna Citation X jet aircraft. As a character actor, Pollack appeared in such as A Civil Action. He also appeared in Woody Allens Husbands and Wives as a New York lawyer undergoing a midlife crisis and his last role was as Patrick Dempseys father in the 2008 romantic comedy Made of Honor, which was playing in theaters at the time of his death. He was a recurring guest star on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, playing Will Trumans unfaithful but loving father, George Truman
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The Electric Horseman
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The Electric Horseman is a 1979 American western adventure-romance film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda and directed by Sydney Pollack. Norman Sonny Steele is a championship rodeo rider who has sold out to a business conglomerate and is now reduced to making public appearances to sell a brand of breakfast cereal. Hallie Martin, a television reporter eager to be the first to break the Rising Star story, locates Sonny, while en route, the unlikely pair have a romance as they avoid the pursuing authorities. This director-actor relationship would continue with two films, Out of Africa and Havana. Pollack had also previously directed Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Dont They, whereas Redford and Fonda previously teamed on The Chase and Barefoot in the Park. The Electric Horseman is noted as being the acting performance of long-time country and western singer Willie Nelson. According to Pollack, Nelson improvised most of his dialogue in the film, Pollack would later be executive producer for Nelsons 1980 starring vehicle Honeysuckle Rose. The film was only the second film performance of character actor Wilford Brimley. Principal photography for The Electric Horseman took place during late 1978 and early 1979 throughout Nevada, while filming generally went smoothly, Pollack struggled with revising the script while filming was underway. In addition, there was one day in which production was continuously delayed due to traveling thunderstorms that interrupted the 20-second kissing scene between Redford and Fonda. Ultimately, the scene ended up requiring 48 takes that pushed costs to $280,000, the film went over budget by $1.3 million, elevating it to $12.5 million. The musical score to The Electric Horseman was composed by Dave Grusin, coinciding with the films release, a soundtrack album was released featuring both Nelsons songs and Grusins score. The Electric Horseman was released theatrically in the United States on December 21,1979. Even with the budget escalating to $12.5 million, the film was a box office success, while the film was co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures, and distributed by Columbia domestically and Universal internationally, the US film rights would later revert to Universal. While the film was a success, it received mixed reviews upon release. Film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 68% of critics gave the film a review based on 19 reviews with a Fresh rating. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 1980 for Best Sound. Siskel, who gave the three stars, highlighted what he detected to be genuine chemistry between Redford and Fonda
