Everything about Artisan Entertainment totally explained
Artisan Entertainment was a privately held
independent American movie studio until it was purchased by
Lionsgate in
2003. At the time of its acquisition Artisan had a library of thousands of films developed through acquisition, original production, and production and distribution agreements.
The company owned the home video rights to the film libraries of
Republic Pictures,
Vestron, and
Carolco Pictures. They also owned
Family Home Entertainment (FHE), and its motion picture subdivision,
FHE Pictures for a first-feature film .
Artisan's releases included
Requiem for a Dream,
Pi,
Grizzly Falls,
Killing Zoe,
National Lampoon's Van Wilder,
The Blair Witch Project,
Novocaine, and
Startup.com.
History
Artisan, unlike most movie studios, has its roots in the
home video industry.
1980s
Artisan Entertainment began its life in
1982 as USA Home Video, which the tapes were usually packaged in large sized boxes and included films such as
Supergirl,
Silent Night, Deadly Night, and many
B-movies including those that begin and end with B-actress
Sybil Danning talking about the film that's being shown under the Adventure Video label. USA was the non-family division of Family Home Entertainment, which was founded in
1981 by
Noel C. Bloom. Also founded by Family Home Entertainment were ThrillerVideo, and Monterey Home Video.
In 1986, the company became known as International Video Entertainment (IVE). In the late
1980s, the company branched into film distribution for television.
In 1987, IVE began to distribute films by
Carolco Pictures starting with the unrated release of
Angel Heart. The first two Carolco films (
First Blood and ) were released under the Thorn/EMI/HBO Video name, but were released in 1990 and 1988, respectively, under IVE.
1990s
In 1990, IVE became Live Home Video with the divisions such as Carolco Home Video and
Family Home Entertainment.
In
1990, Live Entertainment decided to branch into film production. Its first feature film was
Short Time. Its second feature film was the English dub of
The Palermo Connection. Its third feature film was
Quentin Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs.
In
1991, the company took over
Vestron Pictures after its downfall; Vestron had been known best for
Dirty Dancing, which had been the second highest-grossing independent film of all time. Also, for several years starting in 1993, Live Entertainment distributed anime released by
Pioneer Entertainment, including
Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki.
In
1995, when Carolco ceased to exist as a company,
StudioCanal got full rights to their film library and thus Live (under a new deal with the French-based production company) continued to distribute Carolco's films for video.
Other ex-video distributors that had been owned by Live Entertainment include Lightning Video, Vestron Music Video, Children's Video Library, Tenth Avenue Video (And Platinum Productions), Vidmark (and Trimark), and Magnum Entertainment.
In April of
1998, the company was rechristened Artisan Entertainment.
2000s
In May of
2003, Artisan and
Microsoft jointly announced the first release of a
high definition DVD,
(Extreme Edition). The release was a promotion for the
Windows Media version 9 format; it could only be played on a
personal computer with
Windows XP. Artisan had released the movie in
2002 on
D-VHS.
After
Lionsgate agreed to acquire Artisan in
2003, video releases that had been with Artisan are now under the
Lionsgate banner.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Artisan Entertainment'.
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