Columbia Pictures facts for kids
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Trade name
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Columbia Pictures |
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Formerly
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Columbia Pictures Corporation (1924–1968) |
| Division | |
| Industry | Film |
| Predecessor |
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| Founded |
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| Founders | Harry and Jack Cohn Joe Brandt |
| Headquarters | Thalberg Building, 10202 West Washington Boulevard,
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U.S.
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Sanford Panitch (president) |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Owner | Sony |
| Parent | Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group |
| Subsidiaries | Ghost Corps |
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Sony.
It is one of the leading film studios in the world, and was one of the so-called "Little Three" among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. Today, it has become the world's third largest major film studio.
The company was also primarily responsible for distributing Disney's Silly Symphony film series as well as the Mickey Mouse cartoon series from 1929 to 1932. The studio is headquartered at the Irving Thalberg Building on the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (currently known as the Sony Pictures Studios) lot in Culver City, California since 1990.
Columbia Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), under Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Contents
History
On June 19, 1918, brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and their business partner Joe Brandt founded the studio as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name on January 10, 1924 (operating as Columbia Pictures Corporation until December 23, 1968) went public two years later and eventually began to use the image of Columbia, the female personification of the United States, as its logo.
In its early years, Columbia was a minor player in Hollywood, but began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra. With Capra and others such as the most successful two reel comedy series The Three Stooges, Columbia became one of the primary homes of the screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbia's major contract stars were Jean Arthur and Cary Grant. In the 1940s, Rita Hayworth became the studio's premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell, Glenn Ford and William Holden also became major stars at the studio.
Logo
The Columbia Pictures logo, featuring the Torch Lady, a woman carrying a torch and wearing a drape (representing Columbia, a personification of the United States), has gone through five major changes. It has often been compared to the Statue of Liberty, which was an inspiration to the Columbia Pictures logo.
History
Originally in 1924, Columbia Pictures used a logo featuring a female Roman soldier holding a shield in her left hand and a stick of wheat in her right hand, which was based on actress Doris Doscher (known as the model for the statue on the Pulitzer Fountain) as the Standing Liberty quarter used from 1916 to 1930, though the studio's version was given longer hair. The logo changed in 1928 with a new woman wearing a draped flag and torch. The woman wore a headdress, the stola and carried the palla of ancient Rome, and above her were the words "A Columbia Production" ("A Columbia Picture" or "Columbia Pictures Corporation") written in an arch. The illustration was based upon the actress Evelyn Venable, known for providing the voice of the Blue Fairy in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. An alternative version of the 1928 logo with the slogan, "Gems of the Screen"; itself a takeoff on the song "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean", later inspired the renaming of the Charles Mintz Studio into Screen Gems.
In 1936, the logo was changed: the Torch Lady now stood on a pedestal, wore no headdress, and the text "Columbia" appeared in chiseled letters behind her. Pittsburgh native Jane Chester Bartholomew, whom Harry Cohn discovered working as an extra at Columbia, portrayed the Torch Lady in the logo. There were several variations to the logo over the years—significantly, a color version was done in 1943 for The Desperadoes. Two years earlier, the flag became just a drape with no markings. The latter change came after a federal law was passed making it illegal to wear an American flag as clothing. In the 1950s, the woman's robe was redrawn and shaded with a plunging neckline and an exposed slipper-clad foot. A new form of animation was used on the logo as well, with a torch that radiates light instead of flickers. From 1955 to 1963, Columbia used the woman from its logo under the Screen Gems banner, officially billing itself as a part of "the Hollywood studios of Columbia Pictures", as spoken in announcements at the end of some Screen Gems series. 1976's Taxi Driver was one of the last films released before the "Torch Lady" was revamped, although the classic logo would be later used in several Columbia releases, generally to match the year a given film is set in.
From 1976 to 1993, Columbia Pictures used two logos. The first, from 1976 to 1981 (or until 1982 for international territories) used just a sunburst representing the beams from the torch, although the woman appears briefly in the opening logo. The score accompanying the first logo was composed by Suzanne Ciani. The studio hired visual effects pioneer Robert Abel to animate the first logo. The image was created with over fifty light exposures that included streak and special filter passes. The woman returned in 1981, but in a much smoother form described as resembling a Coke bottle. The 1981 version was also used for Triumph Films, with the woman under the Arc de Triomphe in the logo. During the studio's run with the Coca-Cola Company from 1982 to 1989, a golden version of the Torch Lady was used for the Columbia Pictures Television logo until it was replaced with the 1981 version after Coca-Cola sold Columbia to Sony. The slogans for the 1976 and 1981 logos were "Let us entertain you" and "Movies That Matter", respectively.
In 1992, the longest-running, and perhaps best known, iteration of the logo was created; the television division was the first to use it. Films began to use the new logo the year after, when Scott Mednick and the Mednick Group were hired by Peter Guber to create logos for all the entertainment properties then owned by Sony Pictures. Mednick hired New Orleans artist Michael Deas, to digitally repaint the logo and return the woman to her "classic" look. Michael Deas hired Jennifer Joseph, a 28-year-old graphics artist for The Times-Picayune, as a model for the logo. Due to time constraints, she agreed to help out on her lunch break. Joseph had recently discovered she was pregnant at the time. Deas also hired The Times-Picayune photographer Kathy Anderson to photograph the reference photography. The animation was created by Synthespian Studios in 1993 by Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak, who used 2D elements from the painting and converted it to 3D. The studio being part of Sony would not be referenced on-screen until 1996. VHS promos featured the 1992 logo and the previous versions with the number 75 behind the Torch Lady, commemorating the studio's 75th anniversary in 1999 with the slogan, "Lighting Up Screens Around The World". The 1992 logo was also used for Screen Gems Network and Columbia Showcase Theatre, both now defunct programming blocks that featured syndicated airings of Sony Pictures-owned shows and films, respectively. In 2012, the 1992 logo was displayed as a painting at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. Michael Deas gave an interview to WWL-TV: "I never thought it would make it to the silver screen and I never thought it would still be up 20 years later, and I certainly never thought it would be in a museum, so it's kind of gratifying."
Filmography
Film series
| Title | Release date | No. Films | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Three Stooges | 1934–65 | 200 | 190 short subjects through 1959, and ten feature films from 1941 to 1965 |
| The Lone Wolf | 1935–49 | 15 | |
| Charles Starrett | 1935–52 | 131 | Westerns, including 64 features as The Durango Kid |
| Blondie | 1938–50 | 28 | |
| Five Little Peppers | 1939–40 | 4 | |
| Ellery Queen | 1940–42 | 5 | |
| George Formby | 1941–46 | 7 | (from South American George to George in Civvy Street); released by Columbia outside the United States |
| Boston Blackie | 1941–49 | 14 | |
| Cantinflas | 1942–82 | 34 | (from Los tres mosqueteros to El barrendero); released by Columbia outside the United States |
| Crime Doctor | 1943–49 | 10 | |
| The Whistler | 1944–48 | 8 | |
| Rusty | 1945–49 | 8 | |
| Gene Autry | 1947–53 | 33 | |
| Jungle Jim | 1948–55 | 16 | |
| Gasoline Alley | 1951 | 2 | |
| 13 Ghosts | 1960–2001 | 2 | |
| Matt Helm | 1966–69 | 4 | |
| Death Wish | 1974–82 | 2 | International distributor; released in the US by Paramount Pictures and produced by Filmways Pictures |
| Spider-Man | 1977–present | 13 | co-production with Danchuck Productions (1977–81 series only), Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Animation (including the MCU Spider-Man films) |
| Fun with Dick and Jane | 1977–2005 | 2 | |
| The Blue Lagoon | 1980–91 | ||
| Gloria | 1980–99 | ||
| Annie | 1982–2014 | 3 | co-production with Rastar, Overbrook Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, Storyline Entertainment, Chris Montan Productions and Walt Disney Television (1999 TV movie only) |
| Ghostbusters | 1984–present | 5 | |
| The Karate Kid | 6 | ||
| Flatliners | 1990–2017 | 2 | |
| City Slickers | 1991–94 | co-production with Castle Rock Entertainment, Nelson Entertainment (1991 film only) and Face Productions | |
| My Girl | co-production with Imagine Entertainment | ||
| El Mariachi | 1993–2003 | 3 | |
| RoboCop | 1993–2014 | 2 | co-production with Orion Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Little Women | 1994–2019 | co-production with Di Novi Pictures, Pascal Pictures and Regency Enterprises (2019 film only) | |
| Bad Boys | 1995–present | 3 | co-production with Simpson/Bruckheimer |
| I Know What You Did Last Summer | 1997–98 | 2 | co-production with Mandalay Pictures |
| Men in Black | 1997–2019 | 4 | co-production with Amblin Entertainment |
| Stuart Little | 1999–2002 | 2 | co-production with Red Wagon Productions |
| Sam Raimi's Spider-Man | 2002–07 | 3 | Produced in association with Marvel Entertainment |
| Terminator | 2003–09 | 2 | co-production with Warner Bros. Pictures |
| The Grudge | 2004–06 | co-production with Ghost House Pictures | |
| Jumanji | 2005–present | 3 | |
| The Pink Panther | 2006–09 | 2 | Co-production with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| James Bond | 2006–15 | 4 | co-production with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (from Casino Royale to Spectre) |
| Robert Langdon | 2006–16 | 3 | co-production with Imagine Entertainment and Relativity Media |
| Ghost Rider | 2007–11 | 2 | co-production with Marvel Entertainment, Crystal Sky Pictures, Hyde Park Entertainment, Saturn Films, Imagenation Abu Dhabi, and Relativity Media |
| Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs | 2009–13 | co-production with Sony Pictures Animation | |
| Paul Blart: Mall Cop | 2009–15 | co-production with Happy Madison Productions | |
| Zombieland | 2009–present | co-production with Pariah | |
| Grown Ups | 2010–13 | co-production with Happy Madison Productions | |
| Dragon Tattoo Stories | 2011–present | co-production with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | |
| The Smurfs | 2011–17 | 3 | co-production with Sony Pictures Animation and The K Entertainment Company |
| Jump Street | 2012–14 | 2 | co-production with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Relativity Media, and Original Film |
| The Amazing Spider-Man | Produced in association with Marvel | ||
| Hotel Transylvania | 2012–22 | 4 | co-production with Sony Pictures Animation |
| The Equalizer | 2014–23 | 3 | Co-production with Escape Artists |
| Marvel Cinematic Universe | 2017–present | Produced in association with Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (licensed only) | |
| Sony's Spider-Man Universe | 2018–present | co-production with Marvel and Pascal Pictures | |
| Peter Rabbit | 2 | co-production with Sony Pictures Animation (2018), Animal Logic, Olive Bridge Entertainment, 2.0 Entertainment, Screen Australia, and Screen NSW | |
| Spider-Verse | co-production with Sony Pictures Animation, Marvel, and Pascal Pictures | ||
| Escape Room | 2019–present | Co-production with Original Film |
Highest-grossing films
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Indicates films playing in theatres in the week commencing 19 April 2024.
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Images for kids
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The original CBC Film Sales logo used from 1919 through 1924
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The first print logo used by Columbia Pictures, featuring its Columbia personification
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Stock certificate in 1965
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TriStar Pictures, a sister studio of Columbia Pictures
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Columbia Pictures painting on the outer wall of Sony Pictures Studios after the 1993 change.
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See also
In Spanish: Columbia Pictures para niños
