Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Motion Pictures |
Founded | 2017 |
Headquarters | New York, New York, United States Burbank, California, United States |
Key people | Nick Savva (GM), Jeff Stabenau (co-founder) |
Services | Digital Distribution |
Parent | Giant Interactive LLC |
Subsidiaries | Drafthouse Films |
Website | Giant Pictures |
Giant Pictures is an American independent film distribution company founded by Nick Savva and Jeff Stabenau with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. The company releases feature films, documentaries [1] and series on streaming platforms, with an emphasis on flexibility and customization for filmmakers. [2] Giant Pictures owns and operates specialty theatrical label, Drafthouse Films. [3] Giant is the distribution and technology partner of the Tribeca Festival.
Founded in New York City in 2017 by Nick Savva, who had previously worked in digital distribution for the Tribeca Festival, [4] the company was initially launched under the name Streaming Plus. Its first film release was Newness directed by Drake Doremus, which the company had acquired following its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. [5]
Initially a subsidiary of Giant Interactive, a technology services company owned by post production entrepreneur, Jeff Stabenau, [6] Giant Pictures focused on distribution to streaming platforms [7] including AppleTV, Vudu, Prime Video, Netflix, Tubi, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV and Peacock. [8]
In 2020, in order to expand its global digital distribution efforts, Giant Pictures split from Giant Interactive, although the companies maintained a close relationship as technology partners. [9] Subsequently, the company built various apps and channels [10] [11] on platforms such as The Roku Channel, [12] XUMO, LG, Vizio and Plex. [13] By 2022, Giant Pictures was releasing upwards of 40 new feature films annually and had more than 1,000 titles under management via content partnerships with numerous independent studios. [14] [15]
In February 2023, it was reported by Deadline.com that Giant Pictures had acquired US theatrical and VOD rights to A House Made Of Splinters, one of the 2023 Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature. [16] Subsequently, Giant released the film on digital platforms including Apple TV and Prime Video. A theatrical release was announced at select Alamo Drafthouse theaters beginning in March 2023.
May 2023 saw the release of feature documentary, Nuclear Now, directed by Oliver Stone, which Giant co-released along with two of its studio partners, Abramorama and Participant Media. [17] The film makes the case for nuclear power as a vital energy solution in the face of climate change. [18]
Following a collaboration on the re-release of the cult 1980's genre movie Action USA, [19] in early 2021 Giant Pictures signed a sales representation deal with Austin, TX-based distribution label, Drafthouse Films, for the acclaimed films in its catalog. [20] Subsequently, the Drafthouse titles were made available on multiple streaming platforms including Tubi, [21] Kanopy, [22] Shudder and Hulu. [23] In March 2022, Giant Pictures acquired Drafthouse Films with Nick Savva serving as Drafthouse Films' new CEO and Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League becoming chairman. [24]
The first two films to be released by the newly acquired company were Nr. 10, directed by Alex Van Warmerdam and Masking Threshold, directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. [25] Both films had a close association with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas and its related media companies, having premiered at Fantastic Fest then playing at Alamo Drafthouse locations, followed by streaming releases on the Alamo On Demand platform and through Giant Pictures. [26]
In August 2021 Giant Pictures partnered with the Tribeca Festival to create The Tribeca Channel, a free, ad-supported movie streaming channel in the US and Canada. [27]
Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the movie A Bronx Tale in September 2023, Giant Pictures produced a 4K digital restoration of the film on behalf of Tribeca Enterprises. [28] The digital coloring process was handled at Goldcrest Post in New York and was overseen personally by director, Robert De Niro. [29] The restoration took 9 months to complete. To accompany the re-release of the film on UHD Blu-ray, Giant created bonus features including new interviews with De Niro, as well writer and star, Chazz Palminteri. In June 2023, the Tribeca Festival, which De Niro founded along with the film's producer, Jane Rosenthal, premiered the 4K restored version with a special 30th anniversary screening at New York City's Beacon Theater. [30]
In January 2024 Tribeca Enterprises and Giant Pictures partnered on a US distribution label called Tribeca Films, to manage the distribution of high-quality independent films from the film festival circuit on streaming platforms. [31] The label aimed to focus on U.S. transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) and advertising-based video-on-demand (AVOD) with the opportunity for distribution across Giant Pictures’ streaming infrastructure, as well as on the Tribeca Channel. Tribeca Films set a goal of acquiring 25 titles per year from festivals like Sundance, Berlin, SXSW, Cannes, Toronto International Film Festival, as well as the Tribeca Festival. Trade publication, Indiewire, wrote of the initiative: "As the market has changed and made it harder for filmmakers to find homes for their festival movies, even with so many more options available, having one more buyer in the market should be good news for any indie filmmakers". [32]
Title | Release Date |
---|---|
Newness | 11/3/2017 |
Mr. Roosevelt | 12/26/2017 |
What We Started | 3/23/2018 |
White Boy | 5/29/2018 |
They Remain | 5/29/2018 |
Pressing On: The Letterpress Film | 6/19/2018 |
Time Trap | 11/13/2018 |
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. | 12/11/2018 |
American Gospel: Christ Alone | 1/5/2019 |
306 Hollywood | 3/5/2019 |
In Reality [33] | 4/2/2019 |
Tater Tot & Patton | 5/4/2019 |
Ghost Light [34] | 6/18/2019 |
Love, Antosha | 11/12/2019 |
Skid Row Marathon | 11/19/2019 |
Iron Fists And Kung Fu Kicks [35] | 9/24/2019 |
Cabaret Maxime [36] | 3/3/2020 |
She's Allergic To Cats [37] | 4/7/2020 |
The Panama Papers | 5/26/2020 |
Volition [38] | 7/10/2020 |
Watson | 7/14/2020 |
Feels Good Man | 9/4/2020 |
My Darling Vivian | 12/8/2020 |
Action USA [39] | 1/8/2021 |
#Like | 1/26/2021 |
Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know [40] | 2/2/2021 |
The Delicacy | 6/1/2021 |
River's End: California's Next Water War [41] | 9/20/2021 |
Death of Nintendo | 10/5/2021 |
The Snail and the Whale | 10/5/2021 |
The End of the Storm | 11/2/2021 |
See You Next Christmas | 11/9/2021 |
Salt in My Soul [42] | 1/25/2022 |
The Hunt for Planet B | 3/8/2022 |
Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey [43] | 5/10/2022 |
Being BeBe | 6/7/2022 |
Mission: JOY Finding Happiness in Troubled Times | 6/7/2022 |
Dinner in America | 6/7/2022 |
The Bridge of San Luis Rey: Remastered | 6/14/2022 |
Turbo Cola | 6/14/2022 |
Dark Cloud | 6/28/2022 |
The Skeleton's Compass | 9/6/2022 |
Elizabeth Windsor | 9/13/2022 |
A House Made of Splinters | 2/21/2023 |
Messwood | 4/18/2023 |
Nuclear Now | 4/28/2023 |
All Man: The International Male Story | 6/2/2023 |
A Bronx Tale (30th Anniversary Edition) | 9/12/2023 |
A Disturbance in the Force | 12/5/2023 |
Everything in Between | 2/6/2024 |
Stephen Kijak is an American film director. He is known for films about music and musicians, most notably the feature documentaries Scott Walker – 30 Century Man (2006), Stones in Exile (2010), We Are X (2016), If I Leave Here Tomorrow (2018), and Sid & Judy (2019). His collaborators and subjects include such musical legends and icons as David Bowie, Scott Walker, The Rolling Stones, Jaco Pastorius, Rob Trujillo, Backstreet Boys, X Japan, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Judy Garland, and The Smiths.
Mubi is a global streaming platform, production company and film distributor. MUBI produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusively available on its platform. The catalog consists of world cinema films, such as arthouse films, documentary films, independent films. Additionally, it publishes Notebook, a film criticism and news publication, and provides weekly cinema tickets to selected new-release films through MUBI GO.
Teddy Leifer is a British film and television producer. He founded Rise Films in 2006, a London-based production company, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2023.
Tim League is an American entrepreneur and film producer based in Austin, Texas. He is the founder of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain and the founder of Drafthouse Films, a film distribution company, where he produced The ABCs of Death and other films He is co-founder of Fantastic Fest, a film festival, Mondo, an entertainment merchandise company, and Neon, a film production and distribution company.
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Fisher Klingenstein Ventures, LLC, doing business as FilmRise, is a New York–based film/television studio and streaming network, which has become one of the largest independent providers of content to ad-supported streaming (AVOD) platforms, in addition to providing the largest free direct to consumer service with its 22 owned-and-operated streaming channels, the "FilmRise Streaming Network". Currently, the FilmRise Streaming Network has reported more than 31.5 million downloads in the U.S. and can be seen on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Comcast, iOS, Android and Apple, among other platforms. FilmRise also syndicates its own digital linear channels to platforms including The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, and Amazon's Freevee and Vizio.
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Bathtubs Over Broadway is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Dava Whisenant. Comedy writer Steve Young’s assignment to scour bargain-bin vinyl for a late-night segment becomes an unexpected, decades-spanning obsession when he stumbles upon the strange and hilarious world of industrial musicals. The film premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and was released on November 30, 2018 by Focus World.
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Luke Korem is an American filmmaker, whose credits include directing and producing the critically acclaimed music documentary Milli Vanilli, the Showtime series Action, and the SXSW award-winning documentary Dealt. He produces under his production company banner, Keep On Running Pictures, located in Austin, TX.
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Fire of Love is a 2022 independent documentary film about the lives and careers of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. Directed, written, and produced by Sara Dosa, the film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2022, where it won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award. It was released on July 6, 2022, by National Geographic Documentary Films and Neon. It received acclaim from critics, and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 95th Academy Awards.
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