The revived Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. Anchor Bay Entertainment markets and releases "new release genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases".
The original Anchor Bay Entertainment, formerly Video Treasures, Starmaker Entertainment, and Starz Home Entertainment, was an American home entertainment and production company owned by Starz Inc., which is a subsidiary of Lionsgate. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and released feature films, television series, television specials and short films on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2004, Anchor Bay agreed to have its releases distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and renewed their deal in 2011.[1] In 2017, Lions Gate Entertainment folded Anchor Bay Entertainment into Lionsgate Home Entertainment.
History
Original company
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Formerly
Video Treasures (1985–1998) Starmaker Entertainment (1988–1998) Starz Home Entertainment (2007–2008)
The first incarnation of Anchor Bay Entertainment dates its origins back to two separate home video distributors: Video Treasures, formed in 1985,[2] and Starmaker Entertainment, founded in 1988. Both companies sold budget items, including reissues of previously released home video programming, at discount prices.
Starmaker's major distributions were films from the then-recently out-of-business New World Pictures and programs previously licensed to New World Pictures' video division. The rights to these titles were secured in 1990. Viacom programs and Saturday Night Live compilations were other notable Starmaker releases.
Both companies competed with each other for years. In January 1989, Video Treasures was acquired by the Handleman Company. In June 1994, Starmaker Entertainment was acquired by Handleman as well. Eventually, both companies merged to form a new corporate umbrella: Anchor Bay Entertainment, in May 1995.[4] Other budget home video and music labels became part of Anchor Bay, such as MNTEX Entertainment, Teal Entertainment, Burbank Video, Drive Entertainment, and GTS Records, the former four previously distributed by Video Treasures.[4] Both the Video Treasures and Starmaker labels, alongside the MNTEX and Burbank Video labels, were phased out a few years later.
Original company logo from 1995 until 2008.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay specialized in the release of horror films, particularly cult films and slasher movies from the 1970s and 1980s.[citation needed] One of its first releases was Prom Night. It also released Halloween (as well as its 4th, and 5th sequels), Hellraiser, and many others, leading the home video market for obscure and retro horror films.
In October 2000, Anchor Bay Entertainment expanded to the United Kingdom.[5]
In 2003, Handleman sold Anchor Bay to IDT Entertainment, at the time a newly formed entertainment division of telecommunications company IDT Corporation.[6][7][8] On February 4, 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against two former employees of Anchor Bay Entertainment, formerly owned by Handleman. The SEC's complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleges that the two employees caused the company to enter into a 2 million-dollar fraudulent transactions. The transactions involved the purported sale of slow-moving or obsolete inventory to business partners coupled with secret buy-back provisions. The inventory included worthless video boxes and sleeves and DVDs for films. Handleman subsequently restated its financial statements to correct these accounting errors.[9]
In May 2007, Anchor Bay was renamed as Starz Home Entertainment (SHE). A month later, it was announced on June 19, 2007, that Starz Home Entertainment would begin releasing high-definition versions of its films exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In 2008, Starz Home Entertainment was changed back to Anchor Bay Entertainment.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment had a three-year deal with Anchor Bay Entertainment for worldwide DVD releases outside of North America, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
On January 4, 2011, Starz, LLC sold 25% of Starz Media to The Weinstein Company, resulting in Anchor Bay becoming the video distributor of films made by TWC and Dimension.[15] Starz later bought back the Weinstein's stake in October 2015,[16] with Anchor Bay continuing to release TWC and Dimension video releases.
In early 2015, Anchor Bay UK (alongside Manga Entertainment UK) was bought from Starz by managing director Colin Lomax and renamed to Platform Entertainment. Kaleidoscope Film Distribution would acquire Platform in December 2016, with Manga Entertainment UK becoming a separate entity and operating on its own, which itself was eventually acquired by Funimation in 2019.
On June 30, 2016, Lionsgate agreed to acquire Anchor Bay's parent company Starz Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash and stock.[17] The Starz/Lionsgate merger was completed on December 8, 2016.[18] On August 29, 2017, Anchor Bay was folded into Lionsgate Home Entertainment. From August 30, 2017 to 2021, Anchor Bay's website remained online, but with all the links broken.
Revival
On February 15, 2024, Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz, co-founders of Umbrelic Entertainment (founded in 2018), acquired the rights to the Anchor Bay Entertainment name. Zambeck and Katz plan to revive Anchor Bay; the new company will specialize in "genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases". The puppet horror film Abruptio and documentary Dinner with Leatherface will be the label's first releases.[19][20] The library of the former Anchor Bay will be retained by Lionsgate.
During its original incarnation in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay specialized in the release of horror and cult films, particularly those of the 1970s and 1980s. The company's first-ever DVD release was The Car in April 1997,[22] followed by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark that August, and an extended cut (erroneously titled as a director's cut) of Dawn of the Dead in November 1997. The company's next release was Prom Night in February 1998.[23]
Anchor Bay is also noted for the release of the Evil Dead film trilogy on DVD, in numerous editions. Army of Darkness for example, had been released in both a regular and limited edition set that featured the director's cut. Since then, the director's cut has been re-released on two occasions in addition to a 2-disc "Boomstick Edition" of the film as well. Until Anchor Bay released The Evil Dead on VHS and DVD, it was previously unavailable on video from a major label.
Also among its more profitable releases has been George A. Romero's Living Dead series. Anchor Bay has distribution rights for the middle two films in the tetralogy: Dawn and Day, however, it has also distributed DVDs of the original, Night of the Living Dead, which is in the public domain. Like the Evil Dead trilogy, the Living Dead series has seen many editions on DVD. Dawn has itself seen several releases on DVD, the most extra feature-laden being the Ultimate Edition in late 2004. An Evil Dead 3-disc Ultimate Edition DVD was released in December 2007.
Special interest
In addition to feature films, Anchor Bay distributed special interest titles, including children's series, such as Bobby's World and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Until 2008, they distributed Thomas & Friends videos. Thomas has reached platinum-selling status and, in 2004, ranked consistently on the VideoScan ranking top 50 chart of children's weekly video sales. Lionsgate acquired the Thomas DVD titles after HIT Entertainment bought out the rights to Thomas. Rights to the Thomas DVDs now belong to Universal (through their deal with Mattel, HIT's current parent company). The company also has a top market share for fitness videos such as the Crunch and For Dummies series. The company also distributed UFC events on DVD and Blu-ray.
Production company
As a full-fledged production company, it handled TV syndication of Halloween, Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 (to which it also held the video rights) and also ventured into in-house production and distribution of theatrical films.
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