Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California
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Subsidiary | |
Industry | Entertainment |
Founded | December 21, 1987 August 7, 1991 (as Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.) |
(as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.)
Headquarters | 10202 West Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, United States |
Area served
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Worldwide |
Key people
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Michael Lynton (Chairman and CEO) |
Products | |
Revenue | US$ 8.302 billion (FY2015) |
US$ 341 million (FY2015) | |
Owner | Sony |
Number of employees
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est. 3,500 (2016) |
Parent | Sony Entertainment Inc. (Sony Corporation of America) |
Website | sonypictures |
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (known professionally as Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Pictures and abbreviated as SPE) is an American entertainment company that produces, acquires and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs and recorded videos) through multiple platforms. It operates as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., which is the parent company for both the music and motion picture businesses of Sony Corporation. Based in Culver City, California, it encompasses Sony's motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its group sales in the fiscal year 2015 (April 2015-March 2016) has been reported to be of $8.3 billion.
Sony Pictures' film franchises include Spider-Man, Men in Black, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Robert Langdon. Sony Pictures is one of Hollywood's major film studios and a member of the Motion Picture Association of America.
On September 1, 1987, The Coca-Cola Company announced plans to spin-off its assets of Columbia Pictures, which it had owned since 1982. Under this arrangement, Coca-Cola would sell its entertainment assets to TriStar Pictures, of which it owned 39.6%. Tri-Star would be renamed to Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE), with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Star's shareholders owning 20%. A new company was formed in early 1988 with the Tri-Star name to take over the studio's operations.
On September 28, 1989, Sony obtained an option to purchase all of The Coca-Cola Company's stock in CPE for $27 per share. The next day, Sony also announced that it reached an agreement with Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: GPEC; formerly Barris Industries, Inc.) to acquire CPE for $200 million when Sony hired Peter Guber and Jon Peters to be its co-chairmen. This was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president and CEO of Sony during that time.