Embassy Pictures

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Embassy Pictures Corporation (previously known as Avco Embassy Pictures and later Embassy Film Associates) was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as The Graduate, The Lion in Winter and Escape from New York.

1 Founding
2 New Ownership and Dissolution
3 Library Ownership
4 Notable films

[edit] Founding

The company was founded in the late 1940s by producer Joseph E. Levine, initially to distribute foreign films to the United States. Some of Levine's early successes were the Italian-made Hercules films with Steve Reeves and the original 1956 Godzilla as well as the 1961 adaptation of The Thief of Baghdad. Embassy also distributed Federico Fellini's film 8½ in the US.

By the 1960s, Levine transformed Embassy into a production company. Its first in-house productions were The Carpetbaggers and its prequel Nevada Smith (both co-productions with Paramount). Later in the decade, Embassy functioned on its own with many Rankin/Bass animated features (including Mad Monster Party? and The Daydreamer), and successful live-action productions including The Graduate, The Lion in Winter and The Producers.

[edit] New Ownership and Dissolution

In 1967, Levine sold the Embassy corporation to Avco. In 1968, Avco Embassy launched Avco Embassy Television, which became Multimedia Entertainment in 1976; that first television division has since been folded into what is now known as NBC Universal Television Distribution, even though another company now owns television rights to the Embassy library.

In 1982, television producer Norman Lear bought the company, changing the name of his own TV company TAT Communications Company to Embassy Television. The company was already producing such network hits as The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life; during this period they launched Silver Spoons and Who's the Boss?.

In 1983 it set up its own home video division, Embassy Home Entertainment; prior releases from its film catalog had been handled through Magnetic Video. In 1984, Embassy Pictures was renamed to Embassy Films Associates.

Embassy Television logo, used from 1982-1986

In 1985, Norman Lear sold Embassy to The Coca-Cola Company, which also owned Columbia Pictures. Coca-Cola kept Embassy's television division alive; under Coke's ownership the hit series 227 and Married... with Children began. Embassy Television was renamed Embassy Communications in 1986, then ELP (Embassy Limited Partnership) Communications in 1988. Coca-Cola sold the theatrical and home video division to another entity which became Nelson Entertainment.

Nelson was later acquired by Orion Pictures in conjunction with Columbia Pictures, Castle Rock Entertainment, and New Line Cinema, but after Orion went bankrupt some key rights to the Embassy library transferred from company to company (Dino De Laurentiis, Parafrance International, PolyGram), while ELP Communications (now part of Sony Pictures Entertainment) retained the television rights to most of the Embassy theatrical library.

[edit] Library Ownership

Today, the Embassy corporation, its divisions and film & television holdings, are split. The theatrical rights to the Embassy film library (except Blade Runner, Time Bandits and Watership Down, all of which are now owned by other companies, and Embassy-distributed ITC films that are now owned by Granada International) are at the hands of French production company StudioCanal, with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (distributing for MGM), Image Entertainment (through The Criterion Collection), and Anchor Bay Entertainment handling video distribution (via separate output deals).

MGM owns A Chorus Line outright due to copyright ownership by in-name-only affiliate Orion Pictures (co-producer Polygram Pictures' holdings are now incorporated into Orion's library); Sony owns Crimewave and Saving Grace (both co-distributed by Embassy Pictures) and the television rights to Embassy's entire film and television output (except The Carpetbaggers and Nevada Smith, which are now owned by Paramount; Blade Runner and Watership Down, which are owned by WB; and the aforementioned Embassy-distributed ITC films).