Screen Gems
The 1999 print logo with the 2014 Sony byline.
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| Division | |
| Industry | Film |
| Founded | 1933 (as animation studio) 1948 (as television subsidiary) December 8, 1998 (as film studio) |
| Headquarters | Culver City, California, United States |
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Key people
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Clint Culpepper (President) |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Owner | Sony |
| Parent | Sony Pictures Entertainment |
| Website | www.sonypictures.com |
Screen Gems is an American film production and distribution studio and division company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation. The label currently specializes in genre films, namely horror.
The name was originally used in 1933, when Columbia Pictures acquired a stake in Charles Mintz's animation studio. The name was derived from an early Columbia Pictures slogan, "Gems of the Screen"; itself a takeoff on the song "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean".
For an entire decade, Charles Mintz distributed his Krazy Kat, Scrappy, and Color Rhapsody animated film shorts through Columbia Pictures. When Mintz became indebted to Columbia in 1939, he ended up selling his studio to them. Mintz's production manager became the studio head, but was shortly replaced by Mintz's brother-in-law, George Winkler. Columbia then decided to "clean house" by ousting the bulk of the staff (including Winkler), and hiring creative cartoonist Frank Tashlin. After Tashlin's short stay came Dave Fleischer, formerly of the Fleischer Studios, and after several of his successors came Ray Katz and Henry Binder from Warner Bros. Cartoons (previously Leon Schlesinger Productions). Animators, directors, and writers at the series included people such as Art Davis, Sid Marcus, Bob Wickersham, and during its latter period, Bob Clampett.
Like most studios, the Screen Gems studio had several established characters on their roster. These included Flippity and Flop, Willoughby Wren, and Tito and His Burrito. However, the most successful characters the studio had were The Fox and the Crow, a comic duo of a refined Fox and a street-wise Crow.
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Wikipedia