Embassy was founded in 1942 by Joseph E. Levine as a foreign film distributor, before branching out into film production in 1945.
In 1967, Embassy was acquired by Avco. The company struggled in the 1970s before focusing on lower-budget genre films at the end of the decade. In 1982, television producer Norman Lear and his partner Jerry Perenchio bought the studio, and it became involved in television production. In 1985, Embassy was sold to The Coca-Cola Company, which sold the studio to Dino De Laurentiis in October of that same year.
Today, StudioCanal owns ancillary rights to the majority of Embassy's theatrical library, while Sony Pictures Television owns worldwide television syndication rights to the studio's films and TV shows.
History
Founding
The company was founded in 1942[1] by Joseph E. Levine, initially to distribute foreign films in the United States. The company entered film production in 1945, co-producing with Maxwell Finn the documentary Gaslight Follies, a compilation of silent film clips narrated by Ben Grauer.[2]
Success
Embassy found success in 1956 bringing the Japanese film Godzilla to the American general public (in a re-edited version), acquiring the rights for $12,000 and spending $400,000 promoting it under the title Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, and earning $1 million in theatrical rentals.[2] They then made a $100,000 deal to bring the French-Italian film Attila (1954) to the United States in 1958 and spent $600,000 promoting it, which returned $2 million in rentals.[2] Their breakthrough came the following year with Hercules, starring Steve Reeves and released by Warner Bros. Levine invested $120,000 on dubbing, sound effects and new titles and spent $1.25 million on promoting the film. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year, with rentals of $4.7 million, starting a growth in the sword-and-sandal genre.[2]
Art house releases
After releasing the Hercules sequel, Hercules Unchained (1960), Embassy expanded to add 13 offices nationally as well as offices in Rome, London and Paris and signed deals with Italian production company Titanus and producer Carlo Ponti and began distributing art films, often European ones. In 1961, Embassy bought North American distribution rights for Two Women after Levine seeing no more than three minutes of its "rushes". The film, based on a novella written by Alberto Moravia, had been directed by Vittorio de Sica, and starred Sophia Loren (Ponti's wife) and Eleanora Brown, who acted out the respective roles of a mother and her young daughter whom World War II had displaced from their home. Levine's promotional campaign focused on one still photograph, which showed Loren, as the mother, wearing a torn dress, kneeling in the dirt, and weeping with rage and grief. Predicting that she would win the Academy Award for her performance, Levine brought Loren to the United States for interviews, bought space for, and placed, large advertisements in newspapers, and saw to it that Two Women appeared in the cities of residence of Academy Award jury members.
By the 1960s, Levine had transformed Embassy into a production company. In 1963, Levine was offered a $30 million deal with Paramount Pictures to produce films in the vein of his previous successes. Paramount would finance the films and Embassy would receive part of its profits.[3] Under the deal, Levine produced Harold Robbins's The Carpetbaggers (1964) and its prequel Nevada Smith (1966), which were successes, along with flops such as Harlow (1965), starring Carroll Baker. A third film based on a novel by Harold Robbins was also released as part of three-picture deal with Robbins, Where Love Has Gone (1964).[2]
Avco Embassy Pictures logo, used from 1968 to 1982
Embassy enjoyed its greatest success with The Graduate, which became the highest-grossing film of the year. This enabled Levine to sell his company to Avco for a deal worth $40 million, although he stayed on as chief executive.[4][5]
In 1969, Embassy appointed Mike Nichols to the board of directors and acquired his film production company, Friwaftt.[6] Levine also ended a four-year feud with Ponti and Loren and produced Loren's first film since she became a mother, Sunflower (1970).[6]
Levine also started a record label with music industry executives Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, Avco Embassy Records, later shortened to Avco Records. In 1969, the company bought out Mike Nichols' production company and signed him to make two movies.[7]
The company became less successful in the 1970s and only had hits with Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge (1971) and A Touch of Class (1973).[2] In 1972, the company had begun cutting back on production and in 1973 recorded a loss of $8.1 million. Levine resigned as president on May 28, 1974, to re-enter independent production and was replaced by Bill Chaikin.[8] By 1975, Avco Embassy stopped making movies altogether.[9]
In 1968, Avco Embassy launched Avco Embassy Television, to syndicate films from the Avco Embassy library on television. In 1976, Avco Embassy sold their broadcasting division and Avco Program Sales to Multimedia, Inc., becoming Multimedia Entertainment (since folded into what is now NBCUniversal Syndication Studios).
Robert Rehme years
In late 1977, Avco Embassy announced its intention to resume production. In 1978, Robert Rehme was appointed president and chief operating officer and he convinced the company to give him $5 million for a production fund.
In late 1982, Embassy bought out Andre Blay Corporation and renamed the company to Embassy Home Entertainment; prior releases from its film catalog (as Avco Embassy Picture Corporation) had been handled through Magnetic Video, as well as reissues of the Blay Video catalog.
During this period, Rob Reiner, who up to that point had been most famous for playing Mike "Meathead" Stivic on All in the Family, began his directorial career with two Embassy releases, This is Spinal Tap (1984) and The Sure Thing (1985). His third film, Stand By Me (1986), started at Embassy, but it almost got cancelled because of the sale to Columbia days before filming was to begin. Norman Lear ended up putting up his own money for completion funds.[12]
Coca-Cola and others
Lear and Perenchio sold Embassy Communications (including Tandem Productions) to The Coca-Cola Company for $485 million on June 18, 1985.[13][14][15] Coca-Cola, which also owned Columbia Pictures at the time, sold Embassy Pictures to Dino De Laurentiis on November 1, 1985,[16] but kept Embassy's television division active. De Laurentiis folded the company into his De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, and the home video division became Nelson Entertainment, run by executives who had previously worked at DEG before it went bankrupt.
Although De Laurentiis was now owner of Embassy, he was not given rights to then-upcoming films such as Crimewave and Saving Grace (both 1986), and an adaptation of Stephen King's The Body, which became Stand by Me (1986), which became properties of Lear and Perenchio.[17][18]
By the early 1990s, key rights to the Embassy library transferred from company to company due to the bankruptcies of the companies that separately owned them (De Laurentiis for theatrical, Nelson for home video). Dino De Laurentiis's assets went to Parafrance International, in conjunction with Village Roadshow, while Nelson's assets were acquired by Crédit Lyonnais Bank and later sold to PolyGram. Nelson's parent company, NHI continued to exist well into the mid-1990s. In 1994, Parafrance's assets were acquired by the French production company StudioCanal which today owns ancillary rights to the majority of the Embassy theatrical library. However, North American video rights to the majority of Embassy's film library are owned by Amazon MGM Studios via its Orion Pictures subsidiary due to them acquiring most of PolyGram's pre-March 31, 1996 film library which included the Epic catalog, which in turn incorporated the Nelson catalog, while Sony Pictures Television owns worldwide television syndication rights to the theatrical library as well as full ancillary and distribution rights to the Embassy Television library.
Norman Milton Lear was an American screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear created and produced numerous popular 1970s sitcoms, including All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and Good Times (1974–1979). His shows introduced political and social themes to the sitcom format.
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., commonly known as Columbia Pictures, is an American film production and distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation.
Two Women is a 1960 war drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica from a screenplay he co-wrote with Cesare Zavattini, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. The film stars Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown and Raf Vallone. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war. The story is fictional but based on actual events of 1944 in Rome and rural Lazio, during the Marocchinate.
Castle Rock Entertainment is an American independent film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. It is a label of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Avco Records was a record label started by music producers/composers Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore together with film and TV producer Joseph E. Levine in 1968 as Avco Embassy Records.
Studiocanal S.A.S., often stylized as StudioCanal and also known as StudioCanal International, is a French film production and distribution company. The company is a subsidiary of the Canal+ Group, owned by Vivendi. As of May 2024 the company has 14 production companies in Europe and the US, and holds around 9,000 titles in its extensive film library.
Columbia Pictures Television, Inc. was launched on May 6, 1974, by Columbia Pictures as an American television production and distribution company. It is the second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems (SG) and the third name of Pioneer Telefilms. The company was active from 1974 until New Year's Day 2001, when it was folded into Columbia TriStar Television, a merger between Columbia Pictures Television and TriStar Television. A separate entity of CPT continues to exist on paper as an intellectual property holder, and under the moniker "CPT Holdings" to hold the copyright for the TV show The Young and the Restless, as well as old incarnations from the company's television library such as What's Happening!!
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II, producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s.
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Andrew Jerrold Perenchio was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He was at one time the chairman and chief executive officer of Univision.
Tandem Productions, Inc. was a film and television production company that was founded in 1958 by television director Bud Yorkin and television writer/producer Norman Lear.
ELP Communications was an American television production company that originally began in 1974.
Joseph Edward Levine was an American film distributor, financier, and producer. At the time of his death, it was said he was involved in one or another capacity with 497 films. Levine was responsible for the U.S. releases of Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, Attila and Hercules, which helped revolutionize U.S. film marketing, and was founder and president of Embassy Pictures.
Empire International Pictures was an American independent small-scale theatrical distribution company. Charles Band formed Empire in 1983, prompted by his dissatisfaction with distributors' handling of films made by his previous business, Charles Band International Productions. Empire produced and distributed a number of low-budget horror and fantasy feature films, including Re-Animator, Troll, Ghoulies, Trancers, and From Beyond.
Multimedia Entertainment, Inc. was an American television production/distribution company originally formed in 1968.
Attila is a 1954 Italian-French co-production, directed by Pietro Francisci and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti for Lux Film. Based on the life of Attila the Hun, it stars Anthony Quinn as Attila and Sophia Loren as Honoria, with French leading man Henri Vidal as the Hun's antagonist, Flavius Aetius. Irene Papas, in the second of three contract pictures for Lux Film, plays one of Attila's wives, Grune. Ettore Manni, Christian Marquand, and Claude Laydu are among the supporting cast of mostly French and Italian actors. American actor Scott Marlowe made his screen debut in the film. Along with The Pride and the Passion and Houseboat, it was one of Loren's biggest box-office successes during the 1950s.
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) was an entertainment production company and distribution studio founded by Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. The company is notable for producing Manhunter, Blue Velvet, the horror films Near Dark and Evil Dead II, King Kong Lives, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, as well as distributing The Transformers: The Movie.
Robert Rehme is an American film producer whose credits include the films Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The General's Daughter.
Lux Film was an Italian film distribution company founded by Riccardo Gualino in 1934.
1 2 Harris, Kathryn (November 25, 1981). "Perenchio Lear to Purchase Avco Embassy Pictures: EMBASSY: Sale May Be $25 Million". Los Angeles Times. p.e1.
↑ PENN, STANLEY (May 6, 1968). "Avco to Buy Embassy Pictures From Levine For $40 Million of Common, Preferred Stock". The Wall Street Journal. p.8.
1 2 Green, Abel (March 19, 1969). "Mike Nichols On Avco Embassy Board; Joe Levine's Peace With Ponti-Loren". Variety. p.1.
↑ SLOANE, LEONARD (March 19, 1969). "Mergers Set in Show Business: Avco Buys Nichols Unit MERGERS SHAPED IN SHOW BUSINESS". The New York Times. p.61.
↑ Weiler, A. H. (May 30, 1974). "Levine, Producer, Quits as President Of Avco Embassy: Amicable Resignation". The New York Times. p.33.
↑ "Avco Apparently Will Produce Movies After 5-Year Hiatus: Concern Would Likely Work With Others Instead of Making Films on Its Own". The Wall Street Journal. December 6, 1977. p.10.
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