Loew's, Inc.

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Loew's, Incorporated ( Loew's, Inc. , also: Loews Theaters ) was the name of a large US cinema chain founded by Marcus Loew in 1904 . The company existed under its own name until it merged with AMC Entertainment in 2006.

history

Marcus Loew (1870–1927) began his business career in the penny arcade business and in 1904 founded the People's Vaudeville Company , a theater chain whose branches showed short films as well as live variety shows. The company had expanded considerably as early as 1910 and was now called Loew's Consolidated Enterprises . Loew's partners now included Adolph Zukor , Joseph Schenck and Nicholas Schenck . Zukor soon left the company to start his own manufacturing company - the Famous Players (1912) - Joseph Schenck left in 1917; Nicholas Schenck remained Loew's most important man. In 1919, Loew reorganized its company, which was now called Loew's, Incorporated .

As head of the Famous Players , Zukor had become Loews' film supplier; When, during the boom that the film industry experienced after the end of the First World War , Zukor no longer rented his feature films at a fixed price, but against income sharing, Loew strived for independence and in 1920 acquired his own production company, the Metro Pictures Corporation .

In 1924 Metro Pictures were merged with Goldwyn Picture Corporation , which together now formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Loew's company was the parent company of the new company. The Loews cinemas served from this point in time to distribute the MGM productions. Loew remained president of the company until his death in 1927. He was followed by Nicholas Schenck until 1955.

In 1948 the US Supreme Court ordered the two branches of industry to be separated and forced Schenck to sell the profitable cinemas. Loew's, Inc. continued to exist as the parent company of MGM.

Loews Cineplex Entertainment logo

Also Loews Theaters passed on. In 1998 they merged with the Cineplex Odeon Corporation and together they formed the Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corporation , which was one of the largest cinema chains in the world. It owned venues in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Korea and Spain.

In 2002 Loews Cineplex was bought by Onex Corporation and Oaktree Capital Management . Just two years later, the company - now without its Canadian branches - was sold again and became the property of a group of private investors, including the Carlyle Group .

On January 26, 2006, Loews Cineplex was merged with the cinema chain AMC Entertainment Inc. , which had existed since 1920 . At this point in time, the new company as a whole had around 178 theaters or 2,059 projection rooms. The name Loews still serves as its own trademark within the AMC Theaters .

literature

  • Joel W. Finler: The Hollywood Story , New York (Crown Publishers Inc.) 1988, ISBN 0-517-56576-5 (English)
  • Robert Sobel The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition (Weybright & Talley), 1974, Chapter 7, Marcus Loew: An Artist in Spite of Himself , ISBN 0-679-40064-8 (English)

Web links