TriStar Pictures

TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film production/distribution studio of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, owned by the Sony subsidiary Sony Pictures Entertainment.

History

The concept for TriStar Pictures was the brainchild of Victor Kaufman, a senior executive of Columbia Pictures (then a subsidiary of Coca-Cola), who convinced the studio, HBO, and CBS to pool resources and split the ever-growing costs of making movies, creating a new joint venture in 1982. On May 16, 1983, it was given the name Tri-Star Pictures (when the new company was formed and did not have an official name, the press used the code-name "Nova", but the name could not be obtained as it was being used as the title for the PBS science series). It was the first new major Hollywood studio to be established since RKO Pictures was founded over 50 years earlier.

The studio's first produced film in 1984 was The Natural starring Robert Redford. Their first release however, was the film, Where the Boys Are '84; a 1984 remake of the 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, Where the Boys Are that was co-distributed on behalf of ITC Entertainment after Universal rejected it; the film was a commercial flop. During this venture, many of Tri-Star's releases were released on VHS by either RCA-Columbia Pictures Home Video (now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), CBS/Fox Video (now CBS Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), or HBO Video. In addition, HBO would gain exclusive cable distribution rights to these films, and broadcast television licenses would go to CBS.