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Cinema Center Films

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Cinema Center Films
TypeDivision
IndustryFilm production
Founded1967; 56 years ago (1967)
FoundersWilliam S. Paley
Frank Stanton
Gordon T. Stulberg[1]
Defunct1972; 51 years ago (1972)
SuccessorCBS Theatrical Films (1979–1985)
Paramount Pictures (film library, 1999–present)
Headquarters
Hollywood
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Gordon T. Stulberg[1]
ProductsMotion pictures
$10 million loss (1971 est.)[2]
OwnerCBS

Cinema Center Films (CCF) was the theatrical film production company of the CBS Television Network from 1967 to 1972. Its films were distributed by National General Pictures.[3] The production unit was located at CBS Studio Center in the Studio City district of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. and produced 30 films.[om 1]

Discover more about Cinema Center Films related topics

CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainment Group division of Paramount Global.

National General Pictures

National General Pictures

National General Corporation (NGC) was a theater chain holding company, film distribution and production company and was considered one of the "instant majors". It was in operation from 1951 to 1974.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.

San Fernando Valley

San Fernando Valley

The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated areas and the incorporated cities of Burbank, Calabasas, Glendale, Hidden Hills, and San Fernando. The valley is well known for its iconic film studios such as Warner Bros. Studio and Walt Disney Studios. In addition, it is home to the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park.

History

CBS chairman William S. Paley and Frank Stanton founded the network's first film division, Cinema Center Films, in 1967, with Gordon T. Stulberg as its first chief.[1]

In February 1967 CBS had bought the studios of Republic Pictures (which would be renamed CBS Studio Center) for $9.5 million.[om 1] The following month they announced Stulberg's appointment, stating they intended to make ten films a year at a cost of $3.5 million each on average. Paley and Stulberg met with Gulf & Western chairman Charles Bluhdorn, who had just acquired Paramount Pictures, in a search for a distributor, but Bluhdorn's over chumminess turned off Paley. Stulberg reported to John A. Schneider, CBS network president.[4]

The studio's first notable talent signing was with Doris Day[5] which resulted in their first movie With Six You Get Eggroll.[4] Initially, CCF was generally termed by the film community as a maker only of "fluffy films" that seemed designed for rebroadcast on CBS.[4]

Their second signing was with Bob Banner Associates, who were to make a series of projects that did not come to fruition.[6] National General Pictures agreed to distribute their films in August 1967, agreeing to provide $60 million for 22 movies.[7] They signed a four-picture deal in 1967 with Jalem, Jack Lemmon's company worth $21 million – Jalem was to produce four films, two in which Lemmon was to appear.[8] Other people who signed deals with the company include producer William Graf,[9] and actor Steve McQueen via his company Solar Productions.[10] Robert Culp's company also signed.[11]

Ogilvy Mather was hired in July 1969 to provide advertising for the division.[12] To counter-act the film community's perception of being a "fluffy films" producer Stulberg recommended making The Boys in the Band to Paley. Little Big Man was CCF's biggest hit at the box office despite a cost overrun.[4] CCF also financed a Broadway production, Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, a Don Petersen drama that opened in February 1970.[13] Paley moved responsibility at CBS for CCF from Schneider to Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records, which was then owned by CBS.[4]

Twenty-six films were produced under Stulberg until he left to work at 20th Century Fox in 1971.[1] CBS closed the unit in 1972;[2] its last film was the Peanuts animated musical Snoopy, Come Home. The studio never reported a profit in any year of its operation losing money on the 20 out of 27 films for a total loss of $30 million.[4]

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Frank Stanton (executive)

Frank Stanton (executive)

Frank Nicholas Stanton was an American broadcasting executive who served as the president of CBS between 1946 and 1971 and then as vice chairman until 1973. He also served as the chairman of the Rand Corporation from 1961 until 1967.

Gordon Stulberg

Gordon Stulberg

Gordon T. Stulberg was a Canadian-American film executive and lawyer, best known for a long stint as president and chief operating officer of 20th Century Fox and Cinema Center Films and PolyGram Pictures.

Charles Bluhdorn

Charles Bluhdorn

Charles George Bluhdorn was an Austrian-born American industrialist.

John A. Schneider

John A. Schneider

John A. ("Jack") Schneider was a former president of the CBS Television Network from 1965-1976, and from 1979 until 1984, the first president of Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment, the company that created MTV.

Doris Day

Doris Day

Doris Day was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.

National General Pictures

National General Pictures

National General Corporation (NGC) was a theater chain holding company, film distribution and production company and was considered one of the "instant majors". It was in operation from 1951 to 1974.

Jack Lemmon

Jack Lemmon

John Uhler Lemmon III was an American actor. Considered equally proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in dramedy pictures, leading The Guardian to coin him "the most successful tragi-comedian of his age."

Little Big Man (film)

Little Big Man (film)

Little Big Man is a 1970 American Western film directed by Arthur Penn and based on the 1964 novel Little Big Man by Thomas Berger. While broadly categorized as a western, or an epic, the film encompasses several literary/film genres, including comedy, drama and adventure. The film follows the life of a white man who was raised by members of the Cheyenne nation during the 19th century. The film is largely concerned with contrasting the lives of American pioneers and Native Americans throughout the progression of the boy's life. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Chief Dan George, Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam, Jeff Corey and Richard Mulligan.

Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?

Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?

Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? is a play written in 1969 by Don Petersen. It has three acts, and helped to launch the careers of actors Al Pacino and Ron Thompson.

Don Petersen (playwright)

Don Petersen (playwright)

Don Petersen was an American playwright and screenwriter. Born in Davenport, Iowa, Petersen wrote the play Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, which debuted on Broadway on February 25, 1969, and ran for only 39 performances after 19 previews. Though a failure at the box office, the play was a succès d'estime, garnering Al Pacino a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award. Petersen's second Broadway play, The Enemy is Dead, was a flop, opening and closing after one performance on January 14, 1973.

Goddard Lieberson

Goddard Lieberson

Goddard Lieberson was the president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971, and again from 1973 to 1975. He became president of the Recording Industry Association of America in 1964. He was also a composer, and studied with George Frederick McKay, at the University of Washington, Seattle. He married Vera Zorina in 1946 and with her had 2 children.

Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records.

Postscript

Distribution of Cinema Center's films were transferred from National General Pictures to Warner Bros. in a November 1973 deal that also included those of First Artists Productions.[om 2]

CBS sold 28 CCF films to Viacom in 1979 for $30 million.[14] Another look at Cinema Center Films found that it was profitable. Since its closure, its films had been generating income via network and pay TV ancillary markets,[15] thus CBS attempted another return to the theatrical film production business in 1982, with a unit known as CBS Theatrical Films, as well as with Tri-Star Pictures, the joint venture between CBS, HBO and Columbia Pictures. CBS closed down CBS Theatrical Films and dropped out of Tri-Star in 1985.[16]

CBS would later fall under common ownership with Paramount Pictures after being bought by Viacom (Paramount's parent since 1994 and originally the syndication arm of CBS) in 1999. CBS and Viacom split again in 2005, with CBS becoming a unit of CBS Corporation, but both are still majority-owned by National Amusements. CBS eventually launched a new film unit independent of Viacom and Paramount in March 2007, called CBS Films (which Lionsgate took over CBS Films' U.S. distribution and global sales functions in 2015).[17] On December 4, 2019, CBS Films was folded into the main CBS Entertainment Group after releasing Jexi, at the same time CBS also announced that it will re-merge with Viacom to form ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global), reuniting CBS with Paramount.

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Viacom (1952–2006)

Viacom (1952–2006)

The original incarnation of Viacom Inc. was an American media conglomerate based in New York City. It began as CBS Television Film Sales, the broadcast syndication division of the CBS television network in 1952; it was renamed CBS Films in 1958, renamed CBS Enterprises in 1968, renamed Viacom in 1970, and spun off into its own company in 1971. Viacom was a distributor of CBS television series throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and also distributed syndicated television programs.

CBS Theatrical Films

CBS Theatrical Films

CBS Theatrical Films, also as CBS Theatrical Films Group, was the film production branch of the U.S. television network, CBS, which was active from 1979 to 1985.

TriStar Pictures

TriStar Pictures

TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film studio and production company that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, part of the multinational conglomerate Sony. It is a corporate sibling of Sony studio Columbia Pictures.

HBO

HBO

Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based at Warner Bros. Discovery's corporate headquarters inside 30 Hudson Yards in Manhattan's West Side district. Programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries, occasional comedy and concert specials, and periodic interstitial programs.

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Sony.

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global. It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States, and the sole member of the "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.

CBS Corporation

CBS Corporation

The second incarnation of CBS Corporation was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, and television production. It was one of the two companies formed from the December 31, 2005 spin-off of the Viacom assets of the original Viacom, as founded by Ralph Baruch in 1952 as CBS Television Film Sales. It was one of two companies which succeeded the original incarnation of Viacom, alongside the second incarnation of Viacom; both were controlled by National Amusements, a theater company controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone. The spin-off was structured so that CBS Corporation would be the legal successor to the first Viacom, with the second Viacom being an entirely separated company.

National Amusements

National Amusements

National Amusements, Inc. is an American privately owned movie theater operator and mass media holding company incorporated in Maryland and based in Norwood, Massachusetts. It is the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global.

CBS Films

CBS Films

CBS Films Inc. was an American film production and distribution company founded in 2007 as a subsidiary of CBS Corporation and was considered a mini-major studio up until 2019.

Lionsgate

Lionsgate

Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is currently headquartered in Santa Monica, California, United States. In addition to its flagship Lionsgate Films division, the company contains other divisions such as Lionsgate Television and Lionsgate Interactive. It owns a variety of subsidiaries such as Summit Entertainment, Debmar-Mercury, and Starz Inc.

Jexi

Jexi

Jexi is a 2019 comedy film written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The film stars Adam DeVine, Alexandra Shipp, Michael Peña, Rose Byrne, Justin Hartley, Wanda Sykes, Ron Funches, and Charlyne Yi. The plot follows a self-aware smartphone that becomes emotionally attached to its socially awkward owner.

Paramount Global

Paramount Global

Paramount Global is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate controlled by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was formed on December 4, 2019, as ViacomCBS Inc. through the merger of the second incarnations of CBS Corporation and Viacom. The company changed its name to Paramount Global on February 16, 2022, the day after its Q4 earnings presentation.

Films

Main article: List of films produced by CBS

Source: "Cinema Center Films", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 16th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Center_Films.

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Further Reading

Paramount Pictures

Showtime (TV network)

Sumner Redstone

Gulf and Western Industries

Republic Pictures

CBS Studios

Radford Studio Center

Paramount Television Studios

Paramount Global Content Distribution

Paramount Global

Paramount Television
See also
References
  1. ^ a b c d Oliver, Myrna (October 18, 2000). "Gordon T. Stulberg; Studio Executive, Lawyer, Negotiator". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  2. ^ a b Gould, Jack (January 10, 1972). "C.B.S. is Dropping Its Theater Films; Paley Takes Action as Part of a Production Review". The New York Times. p. 47. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  3. ^ "Norman Levy, 67; Fox Chairman Turned Offbeat Films Into Hits". Los Angeles Times. September 28, 2002. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Bedell Smith, Sally (February 29, 2012). "5: The King". In All His Glory: The Life and Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307786715.
  5. ^ "Martin, Betty (May 9, 1967). Film Pact for Doris Day". Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, Calif) (1923-Current File) Page D17.
  6. ^ Martin, Betty (June 22, 1967). "Multi-Film Agreement Signed". Los Angeles Times. p. d9.
  7. ^ "National General, CBS Sign Deal for Film Distribution". Los Angeles Times. Aug 22, 1967. p. c8.
  8. ^ "CBS, Jalem Sign $21 Million Pact". Los Angeles Times. Oct 2, 1967. p. d24.
  9. ^ "Cinema Center, Graf Announce Film Plans". Los Angeles Times. Dec 10, 1968. p. 31.
  10. ^ "Film Star of Year Turns to Creative Extension: McQueen's Creative Film Kick". Los Angeles Times. Sep 21, 1969. p. u1.
  11. ^ Warga, Wayne (July 28, 1968). "Cinema by, but Not Necessarily for, Television". Los Angeles Times. p. c14.
  12. ^ "Ogilvy & Mather Gets Film Task". The New York Times. July 21, 1969. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  13. ^ Zolotow, Sam (September 7, 1968). "C. B. S. Subsidiary to Help Stage Petersen's Drama on Broadway". New York Times. p. 23. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  14. ^ Slide, Anthony (June 11, 1998). "V". The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry. Scarecrow Press. p. 221. ISBN 9780810866362. Retrieved October 5, 2017. CBS sold Cinema Center Films to Viacom -wiki.
  15. ^ Curran, Trisha (June 28, 1981). "CBS Wants to Star In the Movies--As One of the Major Film Producers". The New York Times. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  16. ^ Brennan, Jude (July 23, 2014). "CBS Films' Presidency: And Then There Was One". Forbes. Retrieved August 16, 2018.
  17. ^ Eller, Claudia (September 26, 2007). "CBS names head of movie division". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  1. ^ a b Orders of Magnitude I: Majors, Mini-majors, "Instant Majors", and Independents. Page 331-332.
  2. ^ Orders of Magnitude I: Majors, Mini-majors, "Instant Majors", and Independents. Page 308.
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