Carolco Pictures
Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent motion picture production company that, within a decade, went from its peak of producing such blockbuster successes as , Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Stargate, and the first three films of the Rambo series to being bankrupted by box office bombs such as Cutthroat Island.
History
Early years
The company was founded through the partnership of two film investors, Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna. The two were hailed by Newsweek as some of the most successful independent producers. By the age of 25, Vajna went from wig-maker to the owner of two Hong Kong theaters. Then, Vajna ventured into the production and distribution of feature films. One of Vajna's early productions was a 1973 martial-arts film entitled The Deadly China Doll which made $3.7million worldwide from a $100,000 budget.Their goal was to focus on film sales, with their first venture being The Sicilian Cross; eventually it went into financing low-budget films. Their earliest films were produced by American International Pictures and ITC Entertainment with Carolco's financial support, and co-produced with Canadian theater magnate Garth Drabinsky. The name "Carolco" was purchased from a defunct company based in Panama, and according to Kassar, "it has no meaning."
Rise
Carolco's first major success was First Blood, an adaptation of David Morrell's novel of the same name. Kassar and Vajna took a great risk buying the film rights to the novel and used the help of European bank loans to cast Sylvester Stallone as the lead character, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo, after having worked with him on the John Huston film Escape to Victory. The risk paid off after First Blood made $120million worldwide, and placed Carolco among the major players in Hollywood.The sequel , was timed for the 10th anniversary of the United States' exit from the Vietnam War; that event garnered publicity for the new film, which also became a hit.
The release of the two Rambo films were so instrumental to Carolco's financial success that the studio focused more on big-budget action films, with major stars such as Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger attached. These films, aimed at appealing to a worldwide audience, were financed using a strategy known as "pre-sales," in which domestic and foreign distributors invested in these marketable films in exchange for local releasing rights.
Also in 1985, Carolco began a distribution deal with then-fledgling studio TriStar Pictures with the film Rambo: First Blood Part II. TriStar released the majority of Carolco's films from that point on in the U.S. and some other countries until 1994.
Carolco entered home video distribution as well. Independent video distributor International Video Entertainment was going through financial difficulties and was near bankruptcy. In 1986, Carolco purchased IVE in the hopes of "turning the company around." The deal was finalized a year later. IVE merged with another distributor, Lieberman, and became LIVE Entertainment in 1988.
On August 28, 1987, Carolco acquired television syndicator Orbis Communications for $15.4million and initiated television production and distribution. They also purchased the former De Laurentiis Entertainment Group production facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, and established Carolco Home Video, with LIVE Entertainment as output partner.
Vajna sold his share of Carolco in December 1989 for $106million to Kassar due to increasing disagreement with Kassar over the direction of the company. That November, Vajna formed Cinergi Pictures, with The Walt Disney Company as a distribution partner. Kassar's ownership of the company increased to 62%.
1990–1994
In 1990, Carolco acquired from Hemdale Film Corporation the rights to make a sequel to The Terminator. The company re-hired Terminator director James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in a multi-million-dollar budgeted sequel, . It was the highest-grossing film of the year and the most successful film in Carolco's history. Halfway through the year, Carolco entered into a joint venture with New Line Cinema to start Seven Arts, a distribution company which primarily released much of Carolco's low-budget output.Carolco struggled for some years to secure the rights to Spider-Man, a property that Cameron was keen to produce as a film. Plans fell through, though Columbia Pictures would eventually produce several Spider-Man films. Toward the end of shooting True Lies, Variety carried the announcement that Carolco had received a completed screenplay from Cameron. This script bore the names of Cameron, John Brancato, Ted Newsom, Barry Cohen and "Joseph Goldmari," a typographical scrambling of Menahem Golan's pen name, "Joseph Goldman," with Marvel executive Joseph Calimari. The script's text was identical to what Golan had submitted to Columbia the previous year, with the addition of a new 1993 date. Cameron stalwart Arnold Schwarzenegger was frequently linked to the project as the director's choice for Doctor Octopus. As late as 1995, Internet industry sources such as Baseline Hollywood still listed both Neil Ruttenberg and Cameron as co-writers.
Carolco also attempted to make Bartholomew vs. Neff, a comedy film that was to have been written and directed by John Hughes and would have starred Sylvester Stallone and John Candy.
Decline and collapse
Though Carolco made several successful films through the 1990s, including Total Recall, ', and Basic Instinct, the studio was gradually losing money as the years went on. Carolco mixed blockbusters with small-budget arthouse films which were not profitable. In addition, the studio was criticized for overspending on films through reliance on star power and far-fetched deals. Losses of partnerships also threatened the studio's stability and drove it towards bankruptcy.In 1992, Carolco went under a corporate restructuring, invested in by a partnership of Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera of Italy, Le Studio Canal+ of France, Pioneer Electric Corporation of Japan, and MGM. Each partner helped infuse up to $60million into the studio's stock and another $50million for co-financing deals. MGM also agreed to distribute Carolco product domestically after a previous deal with TriStar expired. In 1993, Carolco was forced to sell its shares in LIVE Entertainment to a group of investors led by Pioneer; it was later renamed Artisan Entertainment, which was bought by Lions Gate Entertainment.
Cutbacks at Carolco also forced the studio to make a deal with TriStar over the funding of the Stallone action film Cliffhanger: Carolco would have to sell full distribution rights in North America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and France to TriStar in exchange for half of the film's budget. Although a major box-office success, Carolco saw little revenue from Cliffhanger since it ended up becoming a minority owner in the film. Carolco's attempt to make more of its specialties proved to be more strenuous: the studio had to shelve Crusade, an upcoming Schwarzenegger vehicle based on a script by Walon Green and with Paul Verhoeven attached as director, in 1994 when the budget exceeded $100million. However, Carolco was able to complete a merger with The Vista Organization in late October 1993.
Carolco attempted a comeback with the big-budget swashbuckler Cutthroat Island, with Michael Douglas in the lead. Douglas dropped out early in its production, and was replaced by the less-bankable Matthew Modine. Geena Davis, cast as the female lead through her ties with then-husband, the director Renny Harlin, was already an established A-lister but was coming off a string of flops. MGM hoped to advertise Cutthroat Island based on spectacle rather than cast. In an attempt to raise more financing for the projected $90–100million film, Carolco sold off the rights to several films in production, including Last of the Dogmen, Stargate and Showgirls. In November 1995, Carolco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Cutthroat Island was released that Christmas and became a box-office disaster. Carolco agreed to sell its assets to 20th Century Fox for $50 million. But when Canal+ made a $58million bid for the library in January 1996, Fox, which by then lowered their purchase price to $47.5million, dropped their deal.
A new partnership was formed between Carolco's owner and Cinergi's owner in 1998. The duo formed C2 Pictures and produced ' and Basic Instinct 2, among other films.
2015–2017: Resurrection of Carolco brand
Film producer Alex Bafer purchased the Carolco name and logo years later. On January 20, 2015, Bafer renamed his production company Carolco Pictures, formerly known as Brick Top Productions. Bafer then recruited Mario Kassar as the chief development executive of the new Carolco. However, on April 7, 2016, it was announced that both Bafer and Kassar had left the company, Kassar taking with him one of Carolco's planned projects, a remake of the 1999 Japanese horror film Audition which he was producing. Investor Tarek Kirschen was then inducted as Carolco's CEO. In 2017, StudioCanal and Carolco reached an agreement whereby StudioCanal would have sole control of the Carolco name and logo and the Carolco Pictures company would be renamed Recall Studios. That agreement settled a legal dispute over the Carolco mark brought by StudioCanal. The arrangement took effect on November 29 of that year.Carolco's library
After its bankruptcy, the assets of Carolco were sold off to other companies, most already sold during Carolco's existence. In March 1996, Canal+ purchased the library in bankruptcy court for a value of approximately $58million. The ancillary rights to Carolco's library were held by French production company StudioCanal, since its parent company, Canal+ Group, owned a stake in Carolco, eventually buying out its partners.On September 17, 1991, Multimedia Entertainment acquired selected assets of Carolco's television distribution unit Orbis Communications.
In 1992, Carolco Pictures licensed television distribution rights to its library to Spelling Entertainment in order to pay off debt. In North America, with certain exceptions, those rights were held by Paramount Television through Trifecta Entertainment & Media as the successor to Spelling Entertainment. All other rights in terms of home video were licensed to Lionsgate under an ongoing deal with StudioCanal. Lionsgate, in turn, licensed those rights in Canada to Entertainment One, although theatrical rights to most of the library were split between Sony Pictures and Rialto Pictures, the latter company acting on behalf of StudioCanal.
StudioCanal itself held full distribution rights in France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In other territories, StudioCanal licensed home video rights to Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.