2. History
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Lionsgate Entertainment is a North American entertainment company. The company was first established in
July 1933 in Vancouver and is now situated in Santa Monica, California.
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Lionsgate Entertainment Corporation (LGE) was formed in 1997 by Frank Giustra a Canadian investment banker
with a $16 million investment followed by another $40 million by Keyur Patel and Yorkton Securities. The
company bought a number of small production facilities and distributions including Montreal – based
Cinipix Film Properties (CFP), Trimark Pictures, Mandate Pictures and Artisan Entertainment.
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Lionsgate sold off their Canadian distribution rights to Maple Pictures which was founded and co-owned by
two former Lionsgate executives – Brad Pelman and Laurie May. In September 2011, they sold off this
Canadian distribution unit to Alliance Films.
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In 2012 they were considered to be the most commercially independent film company in North America.
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It’s first major box office success was American Psycho in 2000, which began a trend of producing and
distributing films for the major American studios. Other notable films included Affiction, Gods and
Monsters, Dogma, Saw and the Micheal Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
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In 2006, Lionsgate attained the American television production company Debmar-Mercury. This company is
most well known for it’s involvement in a number of daytime TV programs.
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On January 13th 2012, Lionsgate announced that it had acquired Summit Entertainment, producers and
distributors of the Twilight Saga, films, for $412.5 million.
3. Television
Lionsgate Television has produced a variety of difference programmes such as The Dead Zone, Five Days to
Midnight, Weeds, Nurse Jackie, Boss, Tyler Perry's House of Payne and the Emmy Award-winning Mad Men. In
2006, Lionsgate also acquired TV syndication firm Debmar-Mercury . with 20th Television handling ad-sales with
the exception for the programme of Meet the Browns, as the ad-sales are handled by Disney-ABC Domestic
Television and Turner Television. Lionsgate also owns the TV Guide Network.
Films
The Lionsgate studios property in Vancouver was sold to the private company – Bosa Developments. Lionsgate
film library consists of companies such Trimark Pictures, Vestron Pictures and Artisan Entertainment.
Video
Lionsgate has a home video library of more than 13,000 films with all of the former Artisan Entertainment
releases including Dirty Dancing, Earth Girls are Easy, Army of One, Total Recall, On Golden Pond and the
Rambo series. Lionsgate also issues NBC programs such as Will & Grace, Little House on the Prairie and The
Biggest Loser. In addition, the company is the current home video distributor of HiT Entertainment involving
programmes such as Barney & Friends and Thomas and Friends.
Video properties currently owned by Lionsgate include those from Family Home Entertainment, Vestron Video,
Lightning Video (a former Vestron company), and Magnum Entertainment. Lionsgate also has a home video
deal with StudioCanal in Ameica on selected titles in their library (most of which were previously released by
Anchor Bay Entertainment).
