Sony Pictures Entertainment

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The Sony Pictures logo
Sony Pictures Entertainment studio in Culver City, California

Sony Pictures Entertainment ( SPE ) is a US subsidiary of the Japanese Sony group and produces and distributes television and film content. The company is one of the so-called major studios . The company's headquarters are in Culver City , California .

The development of the company was largely shaped by the predecessor companies and their owners. The unsteady course of business in the 1980s increasingly unsettled investors in the then parent company of Columbia Pictures (founded in 1924) and Tri-Star Pictures (founded 1982/1983) - The Coca-Cola Company then outsourced the film business to a subsidiary. Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc., the direct predecessor of SPE , was created in 1987 through the outsourcing and merging of the two studios, from which various savings were hoped .

The Sony Corporation of America (SCA) took over the film and television companies of The Coca-Cola Company in 1989 and initially ran Columbia and Tri-Star as separate companies. Sony spared no costs after the takeover and bought Warner Bros. at a very high price two production managers who had just signed new long-term contracts with Warner. However, their balance sheet turned out to be mixed and led to a profound restructuring of the company, which amounted to a new start.

Sony Pictures Entertainment was born in 1991 . Columbia and TriStar (which lost the hyphen from the name) were finally merged and functionally separated: Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group took over the film business, Columbia TriStar Television Group took over the television business. Since then, the former (subsidiary) companies have only been run as brands that have established their own profiles in the following years:

Columbia Pictures
The oldest formerly independent company forms the core of Sony Pictures . All self-produced mainstream films are marketed under the Columbia label. Until 2004, "Columbia Pictures" was the dominant name for the entire company in the United States. In 2004 the old names (outside of the United States mostly Columbia TriStar Films ) began to be replaced by Sony Pictures worldwide .
TriStar Pictures
After the minimal "renaming", the label was used until 1993 for the marketing of externally produced mainstream films and then largely shut down. Until 2004, TriStar practically only appeared as part of the name of various SPE companies and was only used occasionally for specific marketing purposes.
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC)
As part of the restructuring, SPC was formed in 1992 as a pure Arthaus label, the focus of which is on the purchase and distribution of foreign films. Outside the United States, SPC does not appear on its own, but only within the framework of the corresponding Sony Pictures agency or as a distribution company that sells the films to third parties.
Screen Gems
Screen Gems was Columbia's animation studio from 1940 to 1946, and was revived as Columbia's television production and distribution company in 1948, until Screen Gems became Columbia Pictures Television in 1974 . The second reincarnation of Screen Gems has been working as SPE's specialty label since 1999. Films appear under the label that do not fit into the other labels: medium-budget films that are between Arthaus and mainstream or foreign / co-produced mainstream films.
Columbia TriStar Television
From Columbia in 1948 under the name Screen Gems brief break in television business unit, created in 1974 Columbia Pictures Television, to the under The Coca-Cola Company analogous to film counterpart Tri-Star Pictures and Tri-Star Television joined. SPE formed from this in 1994 Columbia TriStar Television, which had only existed under this name for a few years. In 2002 it was renamed Sony Pictures Television .

The name Sony Pictures remained largely out of use for a long time outside of Japan and from official documents. The biggest exception since 1992 was the SPE Arthaus label Sony Pictures Classics in the United States. It was not until 2002 when Columbia TriStar Television was renamed a larger line of business known as "Sony". This development has been driven forward since 2004, even if it is difficult to establish in some cases. Instead of the sometimes very inconsistent names, the global sales branches and the US cinema sales arm operate under the uniform name Sony Pictures Releasing . The representatives of the home entertainment division have taken the same step and operate under the name Sony Pictures Home Entertainment . It is unclear whether the Columbia Pictures label will also be permanently replaced by the Sony Pictures label .

Furthermore:

Hacker attack in November 2014

In November 2014, in the run-up to the release of its North Korea satire The Interview , Sony Pictures was the victim of a hacker attack in which unreleased films and large amounts of internal data were stolen. The hackers initially demanded a previously unknown amount of money from the Sony bosses. Subsequently, Sony was blackmailed by strangers to the effect that the data would be released if the film The Interview was not withdrawn. On December 19, 2014, the US government accused the North Korean government of being responsible for the attacks and announced the corresponding consequences. The government in Pyongyang repeatedly denied the allegations and suggested that the United States conduct a joint investigation into the cyberattacks. To date (as of February 2015) it has not been conclusively clarified who was responsible for the hacker attack.

The FBI has been looking for Russian cybercriminal Evgeny Bogachev in connection with the hack since spring 2015 . The Russian Federation refuses to cooperate with the US authorities.

After confidential e-mails from PES manager Amy Pascal , in which she had made suggestive remarks about President Barack Obama and various actors and directors, became public due to the attack , Pascal came under heavy criticism. In February 2015, she was fired by Sony.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sony Pictures is being blackmailed . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . December 17, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
  2. ↑ Sony hacker attack: Obama increases pressure on North Korea . December 19, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2014.
  3. ↑ Obama's empty threats . In: Spiegel Online . December 20, 2014. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
  4. ↑ "The FBI is searching for hackers with a reward of millions" Die Welt from February 25, 2015, sighted on February 25, 2015
  5. ↑ Amy Pascal Talks Getting 'Fired,' Sony Hack and Angelina Jolie Emails in Candid Interview at variety.com, accessed February 12, 2015
  6. ↑ Amy Pascal Speaks Out About Getting "Fired" From Sony at hollywoodreporter.com, accessed February 12, 2015

Coordinates: 34 ° 1 ′ 3.5 ″  N , 118 ° 24 ′ 5.6 ″  W.