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Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation (Lionsgate) is a Canadian entertainment company that originated in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.12 As of 2007, it is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America.3
History
Lions Gate Films was formed in 1997 by Frank Giustra, a Vancouver investment banker hoping to capitalize on the growing film industry in his home town. The company bought a number of small production facilities and distributors, including Montreal-based Cinepix Film Productions (CFP) and, most notably, Artisan Entertainment.
In 2005 Lions Gate Entertainment announced that they had sold off their Canadian distribution rights to the formed Maple Pictures, founded and co-owned by two former Lionsgate executives, Brad Pelman and Laurie May.4
Its first major box office success was American Psycho in 2000, which began a trend of producing and distributing films far too controversial for the major American studios. Other notable films include included Affliction, Gods and Monsters, Dogma, Saw and the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which became the studio's highest grossing film.
Lionsgate (now branded as one word, though the official company name is still two words), along with MGM and Paramount Pictures/Viacom, will launch a new pay TV movie channel, that will rival HBO and Showtime.5
Giustra named the company after a hometown landmark - Vancouver's Lions' Gate Bridge, which links downtown Vancouver's Stanley Park to the North Shore and North Vancouver above which two mountain peaks known as The Lions rise and which with its two peaks and saddle that the bridge, perhaps analogously but also with its lion statues, is also know as.
The company is unrelated to Lion's Gate, the now-defunct Los Angeles-based studio and production company run by filmmaker Robert Altman in the 1970s. Coincidentally, it had been named after the same bridge in Vancouver, where Altman shot his 1969 feature, That Cold Day in the Park.
Films
20th century
1998
1999
2000
21st century
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Television
Lionsgate Television produced such series as The Dead Zone, Five Days to Midnight, Weeds and the Emmy Award-winning Mad Men. Lionsgate also recently acquired TV syndication firm Debmar-Mercury.
Studios
- The Lionsgate studio properties in Canada were sold to a private company and are now called North Shore Studios, and no longer have an affiliation with Lionsgate Entertainment. In 2006, the company acquired land in Rio Rancho, New Mexico for construction of a new studio facility.
Video
Lionsgate has a home video library of more than 8000 films (many the result of output deals with other studios), including such titles as Dirty Dancing, Joshua Tree (1993 film), Total Recall, On Golden Pond and the Rambo series. Lions Gate also distributes Will & Grace and other NBC programs, Mattel's Barbie-branded videos and Clifford the Big Red Dog videos from the Scholastic Corporation.
Video properties currently owned by Lionsgate Home Entertainment include those from Family Home Entertainment, Vestron Video, Lightning Video (a former Vestron company), and Magnum Entertainment.
References
See also
External links
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