Orion Pictures
Encyclopedia
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American
independent
production company that produced movies
from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros.
and three former top-level executives of United Artists
. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion achieved a comparatively high reputation for Hollywood quality. Woody Allen
, James Cameron
, Jonathan Demme
, Oliver Stone
, and several other prominent directors worked with Orion during its most successful years from 1978 to 1992. Of the films distributed by Orion, four won Academy Awards for Best Picture
: Amadeus
, The Silence of the Lambs, Platoon
, and Dances with Wolves
.
– quit their jobs. Arthur B. Krim
, chairman; Eric Pleskow
, president and chief executive officer; and Robert S. Benjamin, chairman of the finance committee, had become frustrated with the degree of control their corporate parent exerted over the operation of UA, particularly with regard to salaries and other forms of executive compensation.
Transamerica's chairman and Krim began to publicly insult each other.. The final break came when Transamerica refused to provide an expensive car for one of United Artists' Hollywood executives. After twice suggesting that Transamerica loosen its grip on the company, the three abandoned ship on January 13, 1978. Three days later, two more UA executives—William Bernstein, senior vice president for business affairs, and Mike Medavoy, senior vice president for production—joined them. One week after the resignations, 63 important Hollywood figures took out an advertisement in a trade paper warning UA that it had made a fatal mistake in letting the five men leave. The "fatal mistake" came true following the Heaven's Gate
debacle.
In March 1978, the five executives formed Orion Pictures, taking as their corporate symbol the constellation
, which they claimed had five main stars (it actually has seven). The company—holding a $100 million line of credit—set out to finance films that would be made by independent producers and distributed by the Warner Bros.
studio, with Orion maintaining full control over distribution and advertising. The new company's greatest asset was the expertise of its leaders, who had won three Academy Awards for best picture in the last three years while at UA—an unprecedented feat. Dozens of former UA employees joined their old bosses at Orion, a testament to the high esteem in which the company's management was held.
With a management team made up entirely of longtime movie industry insiders, Orion was off to a quick start. In late March 1978, Orion announced that it had signed its first contract, an agreement with actor John Travolta
's newly formed production company to film two movies. In mid-April, the company announced a two-picture deal with actor Jon Voight
. Contracts with actress and director Barbra Streisand
, actors James Caan, Jane Fonda
, Peter Sellers
, and Burt Reynolds
, directors Francis Ford Coppola
and Blake Edwards
, writer John Milius
, singer Peter Frampton
, and producer Ray Stark
quickly followed. Orion also arranged to finance and distribute films for British entertainment giant EMI
. By the end of its first year, the company had put 15 films into production and had an additional 12 directors, producers, and actors set to sign on, making Orion a major Hollywood studio from its very inception.
Orion also began snatching up novels before publication at hefty prices in order to develop them as motion pictures. In 1979, the company paid $1 million for Sphinx
, a book by Coma
author Robin Cook, and purchased The Wolfen
, the story of a group of supernatural wolves advancing on New York City. In line with its leaders' reputation for developing quirky, more sophisticated, and less commercial movies, the company also bought the rights to Final Payments, an acclaimed first novel by Mary Gordon.
In April 1979, the same year it lost Robert Benjamin, one of its original founders, Orion's first film opened in theaters. The opening Orion chose for its films featured an animated depiction of its namesake constellation
. By April 1980 Orion's first set of movie releases had yielded one hit—10
, starring Dudley Moore
and Bo Derek
—and a host of also-rans, including The Great Santini
, based on a Pat Conroy
novel about a Southern family, A Little Romance
, and Promises in the Dark. With the studio failing to make the splash that had been anticipated, Orion and left-behind UA executives fell to sparring in the press. Orion got a shot in the arm at the end of 1980, when Woody Allen announced upon the expiration of his contract that he would be leaving UA; he planned to make three movies with his longtime collaborators at Orion.
Founded in 1958, Filmways had never quite made it into the big leagues of filmmaking and had lost nearly $20 million during the nine months ending in November 1981. In February 1982, Orion announced that it would take control of the company. Orion's partners in the $26 million purchase were E. M. Warburg Pincus & Company
, a New York investment house, and Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO), a subsidiary of Time, Inc., that acquired in the deal pay and cable television rights to future movies produced by the studio.
Orion's interest in Filmways stemmed from the company's library of 500 films (which largely was inherited from American International Pictures
, which Filmways had bought a few years before) as well as its distribution operation and its library of well-remembered TV shows from the late 1960s such as Green Acres
, Mister Ed
and The Addams Family
(two other Filmways productions, The Beverly Hillbillies
and Petticoat Junction
were owned by CBS
). Once in power, the new management of Filmways moved to divest the company of its holdings outside the entertainment industry. Accordingly, its unprofitable publishing arm, Grosset & Dunlap, was sold, and Broadcast Electronics, a subsidiary that manufactured radio equipment, was spun off at the end of 1982 under the leadership of the unit's president.
A month after the takeover, Filmways' new owners announced their intentions to make the studio a major player in Hollywood within the next two years. As a first step in this process, Orion dismissed more than 80 Filmways employees and brought in 40 of their own people, including 15 executives. In June 1982, Filmways announced that its name would become Orion Pictures Corporation and that the company had been "quasi-reorganized" to put it on a sound financial footing. With films slated to be released through the end of 1983, Filmways was now able to proceed with a full schedule of operations. Another result of the merger was that Orion entered television production; Orion's biggest TV hit was Cagney and Lacey, which lasted six seasons on CBS.
In 1983, Orion Pictures introduced art-house division Orion Classics
, luring away Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom, who had previously run United Artists Classics
.
; Orion had invested $15 million in return for distribution rights. In a late June judgement, the studio suffered a partial defeat when the court confirmed The Cotton Club producer's license to negotiate television rights for the film. After an additional Orion investment of $10 million for prints of the movie and for advertising, the studio suffered a loss of $3 million on the project.
By July 1984, Orion had yet to generate a big hit since taking over Filmways and announced intentions to invest $100 million in order to release 12 to 16 movies a year. Of the first 18 movies the company had released as Orion Pictures Corporation, ten had been profitable, five had broken even, and three had losses of less than $2 million. "We've had some singles and doubles", but haven't "had any home runs", admitted chairman Arthur Krim at the company's 1984 annual meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal. In September of that year, however, Orion distributed what was, and probably remains, its most prestigious film, Amadeus
, which went on to win huge critical acclaim and eight Academy Awards
, including Best Picture
and Best Actor
(F. Murray Abraham
). However, it distributed the film only in theatres; when it arrived on cable the following year, the Orion logo had been removed; producer Saul Zaentz
had sold the TV rights at that time to Paramount. Warner Bros. restored the logo when it released the film on home video in 1997.
In early 1985, Orion investor HBO extended its contract with the studio to purchase rights to its films for cable television broadcast; the deal was valued at $50 to $75 million. Included in the agreement were such Orion products as Three Amigos, starring Steve Martin
, and a Dino De Laurentiis
epic, Tai-Pan
. The company released 11 movies altogether in 1985, only one of which earned more than $10 million in United States ticket sales. Despite the high expectations that had greeted Orion's founding, the company had not produced a major hit since 10 nearly six years before. The studio's efforts to do so were hampered by an unwieldy distribution system inherited from Filmways, as well as its less-than-successful advertising campaigns.
The financially unstable Orion ventured into perilous swamps when E. M. Warburg Pincus & Company, one of the studio's original investors, became impatient with the low rate of return on its 20 percent stake in the enterprise. Worried that control of the company would fall into unfriendly hands, Orion's leaders began an urgent search for new investors. In January 1986, Warburg Pincus sold 15 percent of the studio's stock to Viacom International
, a cable and broadcasting company. This was a relief to Orion's leaders, since, unlike proposed arrangements with other buyers, the deal with Viacom allowed Orion's managers to retain their positions. At this time, Orion also borrowed heavily to create a wholly owned subsidiary, Orion Home Entertainment Corporation, to distribute the studio's movies as videos.
, a television and communications concern, purchased a 6.5 percent share. Metromedia was owned by John Kluge, a billionaire reputed to be the richest man in America, and an old friend of Krim. At the time of the Metromedia purchase, Orion announced that its quarterly income had fallen by more than a third. During the summer of 1986, however, the studio's luck began to change, as Back to School, an aggressively advertised film starring comedian Rodney Dangerfield
, fared well at the box office. The movie would go on to become one of the year's biggest money-makers, taking in $90 million.
In December 1986, Kluge and his partner Stuart Sabotnick spent $20.4 million to increase their stake to 9.3 percent, and eventually to 12.6 percent. Orion got a fourth major shareholder one month later, when National Amusements
, Inc., a Massachusetts-based chain of movie theaters, purchased 6.42 percent of the company's stock. These moves fueled speculation that the company might be the target of takeover attempts.
Overall, despite the success of Back to School, Orion's revenues for fiscal year 1986 dropped dramatically from those of the previous year. The company reported a loss of $32 million, after releasing such expensive flops as The Bounty
, starring Mel Gibson
as Fletcher Christian
and Anthony Hopkins
as Captain Bligh. By March 1987, however, the situation had improved, and the company was able to bask in the glow of a string of critically acclaimed hits, including Platoon
, which would go on to win an Academy Award for best picture, Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters
, and the basketball epic Hoosiers
. With a total of 18 Academy Award nominations, Orion's revenues soared to a level substantially higher than that of any other studio, and the studio had the second-highest revenues from ticket sales at the start of the year. Though by the end of 1987 Orion had slipped to fourth overall in box office receipts, the company had won seven Oscars and scored box office hits with Platoon, RoboCop
, and No Way Out
.
In light of these positive results, Kluge raised his stake in Orion even further in 1987, to nearly 20 percent of the company's stock. Soon Kluge was engaged in a full-scale bidding war with Orion's other major stockholder, Sumner Redstone
of National Amusement Corporation. National Amusement had purchased all of Orion investor Viacom International, bringing its share of Orion to 21 percent, and then added another 5 percent for a total of 26 percent. Shortly thereafter, Kluge raised his stake to 31 percent. In February 1988, Redstone filed for permission to increase his share to 36 percent. Kluge responded by proposing to raise his stake to 57 percent. Outsiders wondered at the wisdom of such a duel. Orion's stock price was driven to perhaps unjustified heights, given the studio's high rate of long-term debt, which had reached 64 percent of capitalization.
Finally, Kluge triumphed on May 20, 1988, when he bought out Redstone's share in Orion for $78 million. Holding nearly 67 percent of Orion, Kluge became the owner of what was, in effect, a private company. Given that Orion's assets did not seem to merit the price paid, and that control of the company would have remained in friendly hands even without the buyout of Redstone, Wall Street observers were puzzled by Kluge's expenditure. "This amount is probably so small to Kluge it doesn't matter", one analyst suggested to the Wall Street Journal. "He probably burns that up in a weekend."
Orion had reason to hope that this was the case, as the studio released a series of box office bombs in 1989. Orion's offerings that year included Erik the Viking
, Heart of Dixie
, and The Package. The company came in last in market share among the major Hollywood studios, after the 17 films it released notched less than five percent of domestic box office revenues, pulling in just $60 million. Among its most expensive flops were Great Balls of Fire!
, starring Dennis Quaid
as Jerry Lee Lewis
and Winona Ryder
as his teenage bride; She-Devil
, a domestic horror comedy featuring Meryl Streep
and Roseanne Arnold; and Valmont
, a remake of Les Liaisons dangereuses
, an eighteenth-century novel and twentieth-century play that already had been adapted and released as Dangerous Liaisons
just a few months earlier. "Weird Al" Yankovic
was viewed somewhat as a potential saviour by Orion based on test screenings of his comedy UHF
, but that film also proved to be a flop.
After releasing several busts the previous year, Orion announced a distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures Entertainment
in February 1990, in which the much larger studio would release Orion's movies overseas. Columbia paid the studio $175 million as an advance against future earnings from all the films the company produced in the next six years, its next 50 videocassette releases, and some Orion television properties. Orion had previously relied on a patchwork quilt of distribution deals to get its movies into theaters in lucrative overseas markets, and the arrangement with Columbia allowed it to streamline and consolidate its distribution operations.
A week after the Columbia deal closed, rumors began circulating that Metromedia would sell its share of Orion. Adding to this uncertainty, 1990 soon developed into another bad year for the studio. After releasing such disasters as The Hot Spot
, State of Grace
, and Eve of Destruction
, Orion racked up losses of $15.6 million on revenues of $134.9 million. In addition, creative accounting, which had allowed the company to postpone acknowledgement of its losses, began catching up with Orion.
The studio was in dire financial straits when it got a big break in December 1990 with the release of Kevin Costner
's Western epic Dances with Wolves
. It won seven Academy Awards, including best picture, and became a massive hit, generating over $400 million worldwide. In March 1991, Orion followed this up with The Silence of the Lambs, a thriller starring Jodie Foster
and Anthony Hopkins
which also did very well.
Despite these two bright spots, the bulk of Orion's offerings fared poorly, and Kluge, who had kept the studio afloat through periodic injections of cash, announced that his stake in the company was up for sale. With little to offer, Orion began actively seeking a willing investor.
in early 1991 and became ABC Productions
, although Orion continued to retain ownership of all its television output. Strapped for cash, Orion began selling off promising film projects, such as The Addams Family
, at fire-sale prices in an attempt to stay in business. The Addams Family was sold to Paramount Pictures
for U.S. distribution, while Orion, via Columbia, got the non-U.S. rights. In an additional failed attempt at cashing in on a failing enterprise, Orion also began releasing critically panned films for Portland-based One-Hour Pharmacy (1HRx) Entertainment.
At the 63rd Annual Awards on March 1991, host Billy Crystal
made reference to Orion's financial problems in his opening monologue, joking that "Awakenings is a film about people coming out of a coma; Reversal of Fortune
is about someone going into a coma, and Dances with Wolves was made by a studio in a coma." In April 1991, Kluge, who still owned the bulk of the company, removed Orion's two top executives, including his friend Arthur B. Krim, and appointed younger executives from within the company to try to turn the studio around. One month later, Orion reported a loss of $48 million in its last year of operation, ceased making interest payments on its debts, and entered negotiations with its unhappy bondholders. As Orion disclosed that legal but questionable accounting practices had hidden the full extent of its losses for much of its existence, angry shareholders launched a series of lawsuits. By November 1991, Orion's losses had continued to mount, and its debt had reached $690 million. Although the company was trying desperately to reach an agreement with its creditors that would allow it to release films it had finished, talks broke down early the next month.
On December 11, 1991, Orion filed for bankruptcy and protection from its creditors in federal court. Planning to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, it continued to operate as "debtor in possession" of its business, according to the legal papers.
Later in December 1991, New Line Cinema Corporation
, a company that had grown successful with its Nightmare on Elm Street
series and the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
, put forward a plan to take over Orion. In February 1992, Orion reported that it had worked out a deal with New Line Cinema, but talks foundered on the issue of price and were finally called off in April. ABC
, PolyGram
, Republic Pictures
, and the then-new Savoy Pictures
also attempted to buy Orion, but no deal materialized.
At the Academy Awards ceremony, broadcast on March 30, 1992, Crystal yet made another reference about Orion, this time about its demise:
Silence of the Lambs swept all five major Academy Awards, but by then, most of its top executives, as well as the actors and producers with whom it had done business, had left the company. In their absence, Orion struggled to come up with a way to renew itself by releasing completed movies. Hollywood observers held scant hope that Orion could be resurrected in anything resembling its previous form. At the time of the collapse of the New Line Cinema deal, one executive told the New York Times, "the only other plans I'm aware of ... are tantamount to liquidation." At the end of the summer of 1992, it was uncertain whether Orion would survive.
The bankruptcy of Orion delayed the release of many films the studio had produced or acquired, among them RoboCop 3
, Blue Sky, Car 54, Where Are You?
, Clifford
, The Favor
, The Dark Half
, and There Goes My Baby
. It was not until 1993 and 1994 that the films were finally shown.
Orion's president and chief executive officer William Bernstein left the company in 1992. He found a home at Paramount Pictures
(which coincidentally was being sold to Orion's former part-owner Viacom) that same year.
were successful either critically or commercially.
In the years ahead, Orion produced very few films, and primarily released films from other producers, including LIVE Entertainment. Orion Classics
, minus its founders (who had moved to Sony Pictures Entertainment
and founded Sony Pictures Classics
), continued to acquire popular art-house films, such as Boxing Helena
, before Metromedia merged the subsidiary with Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment
in 1996.
In 1997, Metromedia sold Orion (as well as Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment and Motion Picture Corporation of America
) to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, with the deal finalized in late 1998. One Man's Hero
(1999) was the last film released by Orion.
films, Hollywood blockbusters such as the first Terminator
and the RoboCop
films, comedies such as Throw Momma from the Train
, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
, Something Wild and the Bill & Ted films, and best picture Academy Award winners Amadeus
, Platoon
, Dances with Wolves
, and The Silence of the Lambs.
Following is a list of the major Academy Awards (picture, director and the four acting awards) for which Orion films were nominated.
Most ancillary rights to Orion's back catalog from the 1978–1982 joint venture period remain with Warner Bros., including such movies as Caddyshack
, 10
, Arthur, Excalibur
, and Prince of the City
. Some post-1982 films originally released by Orion - Lionheart
, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
and Amadeus
(the latter two being Saul Zaentz
productions) - are currently distributed by Warner Bros. as well.
Woody Allen's films A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
and Zelig
are the only Orion films from the original joint venture period now owned by MGM. Orion releases produced by the Hemdale Film Corporation
and Nelson Entertainment
are included in MGM's library as well, and are incorporated into the Orion library. MGM did not acquire the Hemdale films, however, (which includes The Terminator, Hoosiers, and Platoon) until it bought the Epic Productions library in 1998. The Nelson films (including the Bill & Ted films) were not acquired until MGM bought the pre-1996 library of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
, Nelson's successor-in-interest, although the television and digital rights to certain films are now held by Paramount Pictures
, with television syndication handled on behalf of Paramount by Trifecta Entertainment & Media
.
Many of the film and television holdings of The Samuel Goldwyn Company
have now also been incorporated into the Orion library (with ownership currently held by MGM), and the copyright on some of this material is held by Orion, except The New Adventures of Flipper now carries the MGM Television Entertainment copyright.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
independent
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
production company that produced movies
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
and three former top-level executives of United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion achieved a comparatively high reputation for Hollywood quality. Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
, Jonathan Demme
Jonathan Demme
Robert Jonathan Demme is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, he has also directed the acclaimed movies Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, the Talking Heads concert movie Stop...
, Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
, and several other prominent directors worked with Orion during its most successful years from 1978 to 1992. Of the films distributed by Orion, four won Academy Awards for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
: Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
, The Silence of the Lambs, Platoon
Platoon (film)
Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....
, and Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
.
Beginnings: 1978–1981
Orion got its start in January 1978, when three disgruntled officers of United Artists (UA) – a motion picture distributor owned by the conglomerate TransamericaTransamerica Corporation
Transamerica Corporation is a holding company for various life insurance companies and investment firms doing business primarily in the United States. It was acquired by the Dutch financial services conglomerate AEGON in 1999.-History:...
– quit their jobs. Arthur B. Krim
Arthur B. Krim
Arthur B. Krim was an American entertainment lawyer, the former finance chairman for the U.S. Democratic Party, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson and the former chairman of Eagle-Lion Films , United Artists , and Orion Pictures . He was also a partner at the firm of Phillips Nizer Benjamin...
, chairman; Eric Pleskow
Eric Pleskow
Eric Pleskow is an Austrian film producer and was the former president of the movie studios United Artists and Orion Pictures.- Biography :...
, president and chief executive officer; and Robert S. Benjamin, chairman of the finance committee, had become frustrated with the degree of control their corporate parent exerted over the operation of UA, particularly with regard to salaries and other forms of executive compensation.
Transamerica's chairman and Krim began to publicly insult each other.. The final break came when Transamerica refused to provide an expensive car for one of United Artists' Hollywood executives. After twice suggesting that Transamerica loosen its grip on the company, the three abandoned ship on January 13, 1978. Three days later, two more UA executives—William Bernstein, senior vice president for business affairs, and Mike Medavoy, senior vice president for production—joined them. One week after the resignations, 63 important Hollywood figures took out an advertisement in a trade paper warning UA that it had made a fatal mistake in letting the five men leave. The "fatal mistake" came true following the Heaven's Gate
Heaven's Gate (film)
Heaven's Gate is a 1980 American epic Western film based on the Johnson County War, a dispute between land barons and European immigrants in Wyoming in the 1890s...
debacle.
In March 1978, the five executives formed Orion Pictures, taking as their corporate symbol the constellation
Orion (constellation)
Orion, often referred to as The Hunter, is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous, and most recognizable constellations in the night sky...
, which they claimed had five main stars (it actually has seven). The company—holding a $100 million line of credit—set out to finance films that would be made by independent producers and distributed by the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
studio, with Orion maintaining full control over distribution and advertising. The new company's greatest asset was the expertise of its leaders, who had won three Academy Awards for best picture in the last three years while at UA—an unprecedented feat. Dozens of former UA employees joined their old bosses at Orion, a testament to the high esteem in which the company's management was held.
With a management team made up entirely of longtime movie industry insiders, Orion was off to a quick start. In late March 1978, Orion announced that it had signed its first contract, an agreement with actor John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
's newly formed production company to film two movies. In mid-April, the company announced a two-picture deal with actor Jon Voight
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
. Contracts with actress and director Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, actors James Caan, Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, and Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
, directors Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
and Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
, writer John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
, singer Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton
Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...
, and producer Ray Stark
Ray Stark
Ray Stark was an American film producer and powerbroker known for his Machiavellian ways.While putting together the Broadway musical Funny Girl - the highly fictionalized account of the life of his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice - its producer David Merrick took Stark and his wife to see an unknown...
quickly followed. Orion also arranged to finance and distribute films for British entertainment giant EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
. By the end of its first year, the company had put 15 films into production and had an additional 12 directors, producers, and actors set to sign on, making Orion a major Hollywood studio from its very inception.
Orion also began snatching up novels before publication at hefty prices in order to develop them as motion pictures. In 1979, the company paid $1 million for Sphinx
Sphinx (novel)
Sphinx is a 1979 novel by Robin Cook. In 1981, it was adapted into the film Sphinx, starring Lesley-Anne Down as "Erica Baron" and Frank Langella as "Akmed Khazzan" ....
, a book by Coma
Coma (novel)
Coma is Robin Cook's first published novel, written in 1977. The book was a New York Times best seller and was also voted as the number one thriller of the year by the New York Times....
author Robin Cook, and purchased The Wolfen
The Wolfen
The Wolfen , the debut novel by Whitley Strieber, tells the story of two police detectives in New York City who, while investigating the violent deaths of two policemen in a junk yard, discover that a pack of intelligent and savage wolf-like creatures are stalking the city...
, the story of a group of supernatural wolves advancing on New York City. In line with its leaders' reputation for developing quirky, more sophisticated, and less commercial movies, the company also bought the rights to Final Payments, an acclaimed first novel by Mary Gordon.
In April 1979, the same year it lost Robert Benjamin, one of its original founders, Orion's first film opened in theaters. The opening Orion chose for its films featured an animated depiction of its namesake constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
. By April 1980 Orion's first set of movie releases had yielded one hit—10
10 (film)
10 is a 1979 romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bo Derek, Dudley Moore, and Julie Andrews. Considered a trend-setting film at the time, and one of the year's biggest box office hits, the film made superstars of Derek and Moore....
, starring Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
and Bo Derek
Bo Derek
Mary Cathleen Collins , better known as Bo Derek, is an American film and television actress, model, and sex symbol, known for her role as Jenny Hanley in the 1979 comedy film 10. However, Derek's film career soon faltered; her later films, including, Bolero and Ghosts Can't Do It , were poorly...
—and a host of also-rans, including The Great Santini
The Great Santini
The Great Santini is a 1979 film which tells the story of a Marine officer whose success as a military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father. The film explores the high price of heroism and self-sacrifice...
, based on a Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy , is a New York Times bestselling author who has written several acclaimed novels and memoirs. Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films.-Early life:...
novel about a Southern family, A Little Romance
A Little Romance
A Little Romance is a 1979 romantic comedy film, starring Laurence Olivier and Diane Lane in her film debut. It was directed by George Roy Hill. The screenplay is written by Allan Burns and George Roy Hill, based on a novel by Patrick Cauvin...
, and Promises in the Dark. With the studio failing to make the splash that had been anticipated, Orion and left-behind UA executives fell to sparring in the press. Orion got a shot in the arm at the end of 1980, when Woody Allen announced upon the expiration of his contract that he would be leaving UA; he planned to make three movies with his longtime collaborators at Orion.
Acquisition of Filmways: 1981–1983
By the end of 1981, despite releasing nine films that year, Orion had grown unhappy with its film distribution arrangement with Warner Bros. As a result, Orion ended its deal, with Warner Bros. retaining the Orion/Warner library. It began looking to expand its distribution capabilities by acquiring the assets of a failing Hollywood studio called Filmways, Inc..Founded in 1958, Filmways had never quite made it into the big leagues of filmmaking and had lost nearly $20 million during the nine months ending in November 1981. In February 1982, Orion announced that it would take control of the company. Orion's partners in the $26 million purchase were E. M. Warburg Pincus & Company
Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus, LLC is an American private equity firm with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil and Asia. It has been a private equity investor since 1966...
, a New York investment house, and Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO), a subsidiary of Time, Inc., that acquired in the deal pay and cable television rights to future movies produced by the studio.
Orion's interest in Filmways stemmed from the company's library of 500 films (which largely was inherited from American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
, which Filmways had bought a few years before) as well as its distribution operation and its library of well-remembered TV shows from the late 1960s such as Green Acres
Green Acres
Green Acres is an American television series starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm...
, Mister Ed
Mister Ed
Originally produced in late 1960, Mister Ed is an American television situation comedy produced by Filmways that first aired in syndication from January 5 to July 2, 1961, and then on CBS from October 1, 1961, to February 6, 1966....
and The Addams Family
The Addams Family
The Addams Family is a group of fictional characters created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. As named by Charles Addams, the Addams Family characters include Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Grandmama, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Thing....
(two other Filmways productions, The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....
and Petticoat Junction
Petticoat Junction
Petticoat Junction is an American situation comedy produced by Filmways which originally aired on CBS from 1963 to 1970. The series is one of three interrelated shows about rural characters created by Paul Henning; the others are The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.The setting for the series...
were owned by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
). Once in power, the new management of Filmways moved to divest the company of its holdings outside the entertainment industry. Accordingly, its unprofitable publishing arm, Grosset & Dunlap, was sold, and Broadcast Electronics, a subsidiary that manufactured radio equipment, was spun off at the end of 1982 under the leadership of the unit's president.
A month after the takeover, Filmways' new owners announced their intentions to make the studio a major player in Hollywood within the next two years. As a first step in this process, Orion dismissed more than 80 Filmways employees and brought in 40 of their own people, including 15 executives. In June 1982, Filmways announced that its name would become Orion Pictures Corporation and that the company had been "quasi-reorganized" to put it on a sound financial footing. With films slated to be released through the end of 1983, Filmways was now able to proceed with a full schedule of operations. Another result of the merger was that Orion entered television production; Orion's biggest TV hit was Cagney and Lacey, which lasted six seasons on CBS.
In 1983, Orion Pictures introduced art-house division Orion Classics
Orion Classics
Orion Classics was the division of Orion Pictures, headed by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom, that acquired independent and foreign films for North American distribution, in addition to producing some arthouse films of its own...
, luring away Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom, who had previously run United Artists Classics
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
.
Success: 1984–1986
In mid-1984, the newly revamped Orion became involved in a legal battle over control of the film The Cotton ClubThe Cotton Club (film)
The Cotton Club is a 1984 crime-drama, centered on a famed Harlem jazz club of the 1930s, the Cotton Club.The movie was co-written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, choreographed by Henry LeTang, and starred Richard Gere, Diane Lane, and Gregory Hines...
; Orion had invested $15 million in return for distribution rights. In a late June judgement, the studio suffered a partial defeat when the court confirmed The Cotton Club producer's license to negotiate television rights for the film. After an additional Orion investment of $10 million for prints of the movie and for advertising, the studio suffered a loss of $3 million on the project.
By July 1984, Orion had yet to generate a big hit since taking over Filmways and announced intentions to invest $100 million in order to release 12 to 16 movies a year. Of the first 18 movies the company had released as Orion Pictures Corporation, ten had been profitable, five had broken even, and three had losses of less than $2 million. "We've had some singles and doubles", but haven't "had any home runs", admitted chairman Arthur Krim at the company's 1984 annual meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal. In September of that year, however, Orion distributed what was, and probably remains, its most prestigious film, Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
, which went on to win huge critical acclaim and eight Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
and Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(F. Murray Abraham
F. Murray Abraham
Fahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
). However, it distributed the film only in theatres; when it arrived on cable the following year, the Orion logo had been removed; producer Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz is an American film producer and former record company executive. He has won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and in 1996 was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award....
had sold the TV rights at that time to Paramount. Warner Bros. restored the logo when it released the film on home video in 1997.
In early 1985, Orion investor HBO extended its contract with the studio to purchase rights to its films for cable television broadcast; the deal was valued at $50 to $75 million. Included in the agreement were such Orion products as Three Amigos, starring Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
, and a Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
epic, Tai-Pan
Tai-Pan (film)
Tai-Pan is a 1986 film directed by Daryl Duke, loosely based on James Clavell's 1966 novel of the same name. While many of the same characters and plot twists are maintained, a few smaller occurrences are left out. Filmed under communist Chinese censorship, some portions of Clavell's story were...
. The company released 11 movies altogether in 1985, only one of which earned more than $10 million in United States ticket sales. Despite the high expectations that had greeted Orion's founding, the company had not produced a major hit since 10 nearly six years before. The studio's efforts to do so were hampered by an unwieldy distribution system inherited from Filmways, as well as its less-than-successful advertising campaigns.
The financially unstable Orion ventured into perilous swamps when E. M. Warburg Pincus & Company, one of the studio's original investors, became impatient with the low rate of return on its 20 percent stake in the enterprise. Worried that control of the company would fall into unfriendly hands, Orion's leaders began an urgent search for new investors. In January 1986, Warburg Pincus sold 15 percent of the studio's stock to Viacom International
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
, a cable and broadcasting company. This was a relief to Orion's leaders, since, unlike proposed arrangements with other buyers, the deal with Viacom allowed Orion's managers to retain their positions. At this time, Orion also borrowed heavily to create a wholly owned subsidiary, Orion Home Entertainment Corporation, to distribute the studio's movies as videos.
Metromedia era: 1986–1990
Orion gained a second set of new investors on May 22, 1986, when MetromediaMetromedia
Metromedia was a media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and owned Orion Pictures from 1986-1997.- Overview :...
, a television and communications concern, purchased a 6.5 percent share. Metromedia was owned by John Kluge, a billionaire reputed to be the richest man in America, and an old friend of Krim. At the time of the Metromedia purchase, Orion announced that its quarterly income had fallen by more than a third. During the summer of 1986, however, the studio's luck began to change, as Back to School, an aggressively advertised film starring comedian Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield , was an American comedian, and actor, known for the catchphrases "I don't get no respect!," "No respect, no respect at all... that's the story of my life" or "I get no respect, I tell ya" and his monologues on that theme...
, fared well at the box office. The movie would go on to become one of the year's biggest money-makers, taking in $90 million.
In December 1986, Kluge and his partner Stuart Sabotnick spent $20.4 million to increase their stake to 9.3 percent, and eventually to 12.6 percent. Orion got a fourth major shareholder one month later, when National Amusements
National Amusements
National Amusements, Inc. is a privately owned theatre company based in Dedham, Massachusetts, USA. The company was founded in 1936 as the Northeast Theatre Corporation by Michael Redstone....
, Inc., a Massachusetts-based chain of movie theaters, purchased 6.42 percent of the company's stock. These moves fueled speculation that the company might be the target of takeover attempts.
Overall, despite the success of Back to School, Orion's revenues for fiscal year 1986 dropped dramatically from those of the previous year. The company reported a loss of $32 million, after releasing such expensive flops as The Bounty
The Bounty
The Bounty is a 1984 British historical film directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, and produced by Bernard Williams with Dino De Laurentiis as executive producer. It is the fifth film version of the story of the mutiny on the Bounty. The screenplay was by Robert Bolt...
, starring Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
as Fletcher Christian
Fletcher Christian
Fletcher Christian was a master's mate on board the Bounty during William Bligh's fateful voyage to Tahiti for breadfruit plants...
and Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
as Captain Bligh. By March 1987, however, the situation had improved, and the company was able to bask in the glow of a string of critically acclaimed hits, including Platoon
Platoon (film)
Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....
, which would go on to win an Academy Award for best picture, Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...
, and the basketball epic Hoosiers
Hoosiers
Hoosiers is a 1986 sports film about a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship. It is loosely based on the Milan High School team that won the 1954 state championship....
. With a total of 18 Academy Award nominations, Orion's revenues soared to a level substantially higher than that of any other studio, and the studio had the second-highest revenues from ticket sales at the start of the year. Though by the end of 1987 Orion had slipped to fourth overall in box office receipts, the company had won seven Oscars and scored box office hits with Platoon, RoboCop
RoboCop
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...
, and No Way Out
No Way Out (1987 film)
No Way Out is a 1987 thriller film about a U.S. Naval officer investigating a Washington, D.C. murder. It stars Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman and Sean Young...
.
In light of these positive results, Kluge raised his stake in Orion even further in 1987, to nearly 20 percent of the company's stock. Soon Kluge was engaged in a full-scale bidding war with Orion's other major stockholder, Sumner Redstone
Sumner Redstone
Sumner Murray Redstone is an American media magnate. He is the majority owner and Chairman of the Board of the National Amusements theater chain...
of National Amusement Corporation. National Amusement had purchased all of Orion investor Viacom International, bringing its share of Orion to 21 percent, and then added another 5 percent for a total of 26 percent. Shortly thereafter, Kluge raised his stake to 31 percent. In February 1988, Redstone filed for permission to increase his share to 36 percent. Kluge responded by proposing to raise his stake to 57 percent. Outsiders wondered at the wisdom of such a duel. Orion's stock price was driven to perhaps unjustified heights, given the studio's high rate of long-term debt, which had reached 64 percent of capitalization.
Finally, Kluge triumphed on May 20, 1988, when he bought out Redstone's share in Orion for $78 million. Holding nearly 67 percent of Orion, Kluge became the owner of what was, in effect, a private company. Given that Orion's assets did not seem to merit the price paid, and that control of the company would have remained in friendly hands even without the buyout of Redstone, Wall Street observers were puzzled by Kluge's expenditure. "This amount is probably so small to Kluge it doesn't matter", one analyst suggested to the Wall Street Journal. "He probably burns that up in a weekend."
Orion had reason to hope that this was the case, as the studio released a series of box office bombs in 1989. Orion's offerings that year included Erik the Viking
Erik the Viking
Erik the Viking is a 1989 feature film written and directed by Terry Jones. The film was inspired by Jones's children's book The Saga of Erik the Viking , but the plot is completely different. Jones also appears in the film as King Arnulf....
, Heart of Dixie
Heart of Dixie
Heart of Dixie is a 1989 drama film adaptation of the 1976 novel Heartbreak Hotel by Anne Rivers Siddons and directed by Martin Davidson...
, and The Package. The company came in last in market share among the major Hollywood studios, after the 17 films it released notched less than five percent of domestic box office revenues, pulling in just $60 million. Among its most expensive flops were Great Balls of Fire!
Great Balls of Fire! (film)
Great Balls of Fire! is a 1989 American biographical film directed by Jim McBride and starring Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis. Based on a biography by Myra Lewis and Murray M. Silver Jr., the screenplay is written by McBride and Jack Baran...
, starring Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...
as Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
and Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
as his teenage bride; She-Devil
She-Devil (film)
She-Devil is a 1989 American film starring Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr. It was directed by Susan Seidelman. It is the second adaptation of the novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by British writer Fay Weldon, after a BBC TV adaptation was first broadcast in 1986.-Plot:Ruth is a frumpy,...
, a domestic horror comedy featuring Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
and Roseanne Arnold; and Valmont
Valmont (film)
Valmont is a 1989 drama film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos. It was adapted for the screen with a screenplay by Jean-Claude Carrière...
, a remake of Les Liaisons dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782....
, an eighteenth-century novel and twentieth-century play that already had been adapted and released as Dangerous Liaisons
Dangerous Liaisons
Dangerous Liaisons is a 1988 drama film based upon Christopher Hampton's play, Les liaisons dangereuses, which in turn was a theatrical adaptation of the 18th-century French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos....
just a few months earlier. "Weird Al" Yankovic
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...
was viewed somewhat as a potential saviour by Orion based on test screenings of his comedy UHF
UHF (film)
UHF is a 1989 American comedy film starring "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Bowe, Fran Drescher, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, Gedde Watanabe, Billy Barty, Anthony Geary, Emo Philips and Trinidad Silva, in whose memory the film is dedicated.The title refers to Ultra High Frequency...
, but that film also proved to be a flop.
After releasing several busts the previous year, Orion announced a distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures Entertainment
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
in February 1990, in which the much larger studio would release Orion's movies overseas. Columbia paid the studio $175 million as an advance against future earnings from all the films the company produced in the next six years, its next 50 videocassette releases, and some Orion television properties. Orion had previously relied on a patchwork quilt of distribution deals to get its movies into theaters in lucrative overseas markets, and the arrangement with Columbia allowed it to streamline and consolidate its distribution operations.
A week after the Columbia deal closed, rumors began circulating that Metromedia would sell its share of Orion. Adding to this uncertainty, 1990 soon developed into another bad year for the studio. After releasing such disasters as The Hot Spot
The Hot Spot
The Hot Spot is a 1990 American drama film directed by Dennis Hopper and based on the 1952 book Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams. It stars Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly, and features a score by Jack Nitzsche played by John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, Taj Mahal and Roy...
, State of Grace
State of Grace (film)
State of Grace is an American neo-noir crime film starring Sean Penn, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman, and featuring Robin Wright, John Turturro and John C. Reilly. Written by Dennis McIntyre and directed by Phil Joanou, the film was executive produced by Ned Dowd, Randy Ostrow, and Ron Rotholz, and...
, and Eve of Destruction
Eve of Destruction (film)
Eve of Destruction is a 1991 science fiction film about a cyborg named Eve, designed in secret by the United States military for undercover operations. The film stars Gregory Hines as Colonel Jim McQuade and Dutch actress Renée Soutendijk with the dual roles as the cyborg's creator Dr...
, Orion racked up losses of $15.6 million on revenues of $134.9 million. In addition, creative accounting, which had allowed the company to postpone acknowledgement of its losses, began catching up with Orion.
The studio was in dire financial straits when it got a big break in December 1990 with the release of Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...
's Western epic Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
. It won seven Academy Awards, including best picture, and became a massive hit, generating over $400 million worldwide. In March 1991, Orion followed this up with The Silence of the Lambs, a thriller starring Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
and Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
which also did very well.
Despite these two bright spots, the bulk of Orion's offerings fared poorly, and Kluge, who had kept the studio afloat through periodic injections of cash, announced that his stake in the company was up for sale. With little to offer, Orion began actively seeking a willing investor.
Bankruptcy: 1991-1995
Signs of financial trouble at Orion were growing. Two high-profile hits were not enough to make up for several years of money-losing projects. In addition, the company had spent large sums in an attempt to begin producing shows for television, raising its long-term debt to $509 million and accepting the attendant heavy interest payments. The television unit never turned a profit. It was sold to ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
in early 1991 and became ABC Productions
ABC Entertainment
ABC Entertainment is a network production company owned by ABC that was created in 1982.The company was previously known as ABC Television Network Productions, ABC Circle Films, and ABC Productions...
, although Orion continued to retain ownership of all its television output. Strapped for cash, Orion began selling off promising film projects, such as The Addams Family
The Addams Family (film)
The Addams Family is a 1991 American black comedy film based on the characters from the cartoon of the same name created by cartoonist Charles Addams....
, at fire-sale prices in an attempt to stay in business. The Addams Family was sold to Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
for U.S. distribution, while Orion, via Columbia, got the non-U.S. rights. In an additional failed attempt at cashing in on a failing enterprise, Orion also began releasing critically panned films for Portland-based One-Hour Pharmacy (1HRx) Entertainment.
At the 63rd Annual Awards on March 1991, host Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal
William Edward "Billy" Crystal is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes...
made reference to Orion's financial problems in his opening monologue, joking that "Awakenings is a film about people coming out of a coma; Reversal of Fortune
Reversal of Fortune
Reversal of Fortune is a 1990 film adapted from the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, written by law professor Alan Dershowitz...
is about someone going into a coma, and Dances with Wolves was made by a studio in a coma." In April 1991, Kluge, who still owned the bulk of the company, removed Orion's two top executives, including his friend Arthur B. Krim, and appointed younger executives from within the company to try to turn the studio around. One month later, Orion reported a loss of $48 million in its last year of operation, ceased making interest payments on its debts, and entered negotiations with its unhappy bondholders. As Orion disclosed that legal but questionable accounting practices had hidden the full extent of its losses for much of its existence, angry shareholders launched a series of lawsuits. By November 1991, Orion's losses had continued to mount, and its debt had reached $690 million. Although the company was trying desperately to reach an agreement with its creditors that would allow it to release films it had finished, talks broke down early the next month.
On December 11, 1991, Orion filed for bankruptcy and protection from its creditors in federal court. Planning to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, it continued to operate as "debtor in possession" of its business, according to the legal papers.
Later in December 1991, New Line Cinema Corporation
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
, a company that had grown successful with its Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of nine slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series created by Wes Craven. The franchise is based on the fictional character Freddy Krueger, introduced in A Nightmare on...
series and the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 1990 American live-action film adaptation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise directed by Steve Barron. The film was followed by three sequels: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze in 1991, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III in 1993, and...
, put forward a plan to take over Orion. In February 1992, Orion reported that it had worked out a deal with New Line Cinema, but talks foundered on the issue of price and were finally called off in April. ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, PolyGram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
, Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
, and the then-new Savoy Pictures
Savoy Pictures
Savoy Pictures Inc. was an independent motion picture company in operation from 1992 to 1997.-History:Victor A. Kaufman became chairman and chief executive officer of Savoy Pictures in 1992 along with vice chairman executive, Lewis J. Korman...
also attempted to buy Orion, but no deal materialized.
At the Academy Awards ceremony, broadcast on March 30, 1992, Crystal yet made another reference about Orion, this time about its demise:
Take a great studio like Orion. A few years ago, Orion released 'Amadeus', it wins Best Picture. Then, they released 'Platoon', Best Picture. Last year, 'Dances With Wolves' wins Best Picture. This year, 'The Silence Of The Lambs' is nominated for Best Picture. And, they can't afford to have another hit. But, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Orion was just purchased and the bad news is, it was bought by the House of Representatives.
Silence of the Lambs swept all five major Academy Awards, but by then, most of its top executives, as well as the actors and producers with whom it had done business, had left the company. In their absence, Orion struggled to come up with a way to renew itself by releasing completed movies. Hollywood observers held scant hope that Orion could be resurrected in anything resembling its previous form. At the time of the collapse of the New Line Cinema deal, one executive told the New York Times, "the only other plans I'm aware of ... are tantamount to liquidation." At the end of the summer of 1992, it was uncertain whether Orion would survive.
The bankruptcy of Orion delayed the release of many films the studio had produced or acquired, among them RoboCop 3
RoboCop 3
RoboCop 3 is a science fiction action film, released in 1993, set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, and filmed in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the buildings seen in the film were slated for demolition to make way for facilities for the 1996 Olympics. Nancy Allen as...
, Blue Sky, Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You? is an American sitcom that ran on NBC from 1961 to 1963. Episodes had various directors, the most recognized being Al De Caprio. Stanley Prager and Nat Hiken also directed several episodes. Most of its filming was on location in The Bronx, and at Biograph...
, Clifford
Clifford (film)
Clifford is a 1994 comedy film starring Martin Short, Charles Grodin, and Mary Steenburgen.The film was shot in 1990 and originally planned for release in the summer of 1991, but remained in limbo for several years due to Orion Pictures' bleak financial situation...
, The Favor
The Favor
The Favor is a romantic comedy film directed by Donald Petrie and written by Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon.-Plot:Kathy has seemingly been happily married to Peter, but their relationship has grown routine. She cannot help but wonder what would happen if she ever got together with her high...
, The Dark Half
The Dark Half (film)
The Dark Half is a 1993 horror film adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name. The film was directed by George A. Romero and stars Timothy Hutton as Thad Beaumont and George Stark, Amy Madigan as Liz Beaumont, Michael Rooker as Sheriff Alan Pangborn and Royal Dano in his final...
, and There Goes My Baby
There Goes My Baby (film)
There Goes My Baby was directed by Stephen Fisher & Floyd Mutrux, and starred Dermot Mulroney, Rick Schroder, Noah Wyle, Lucy Deakins & Kelli Williams. It is also known under the name The Last Days of Paradise....
. It was not until 1993 and 1994 that the films were finally shown.
Orion's president and chief executive officer William Bernstein left the company in 1992. He found a home at Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
(which coincidentally was being sold to Orion's former part-owner Viacom) that same year.
Final years: 1996-1998
Orion was eventually able to exit bankruptcy in 1996, but few of the films released during the four years under bankruptcy protectionChapter 11, Title 11, United States Code
Chapter 11 is a chapter of the United States Bankruptcy Code, which permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Chapter 11 bankruptcy is available to every business, whether organized as a corporation or sole proprietorship, and to individuals, although it is most...
were successful either critically or commercially.
In the years ahead, Orion produced very few films, and primarily released films from other producers, including LIVE Entertainment. Orion Classics
Orion Classics
Orion Classics was the division of Orion Pictures, headed by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom, that acquired independent and foreign films for North American distribution, in addition to producing some arthouse films of its own...
, minus its founders (who had moved to Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
and founded Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...
), continued to acquire popular art-house films, such as Boxing Helena
Boxing Helena
Boxing Helena is a 1993 romantic drama film and the debut feature film by Jennifer Chambers Lynch, daughter of David Lynch. The film stars Julian Sands and Sherilyn Fenn as the eponymous Helena.-Plot:...
, before Metromedia merged the subsidiary with Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was an independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., the son of the famous Hollywood mogul, Samuel Goldwyn, in 1979.-Background:...
in 1996.
In 1997, Metromedia sold Orion (as well as Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment and Motion Picture Corporation of America
Motion Picture Corporation of America
Motion Picture Corporation of America is an American film production company founded by Brad Krevoy in 1986 to focus on producing, acquiring, and distributing commercial motion picture and television productions.-History:...
) to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, with the deal finalized in late 1998. One Man's Hero
One Man's Hero
One Man's Hero is a 1999 film starring Tom Berenger and directed by Lance Hool. The film has the distinction of being the last one released by Orion Pictures....
(1999) was the last film released by Orion.
Notable films
During the 1980s, Orion's output included Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
films, Hollywood blockbusters such as the first Terminator
The Terminator
The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, co-written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr., and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The film was produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures, and filmed in Los...
and the RoboCop
RoboCop
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...
films, comedies such as Throw Momma from the Train
Throw Momma from the Train
Throw Momma from the Train is a 1987 American black comedy film. It was inspired by the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train, which also plays a role in the film...
, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (film)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Frank Oz. The screenplay by Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro, and Paul Henning focuses on two con artists who ply their trade on the French Riviera...
, Something Wild and the Bill & Ted films, and best picture Academy Award winners Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
, Platoon
Platoon (film)
Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....
, Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
, and The Silence of the Lambs.
Following is a list of the major Academy Awards (picture, director and the four acting awards) for which Orion films were nominated.
| Film (Year) | Major Oscars | Nominee | Outcome | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Great Santini The Great Santini The Great Santini is a 1979 film which tells the story of a Marine officer whose success as a military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father. The film explores the high price of heroism and self-sacrifice... (1980) |
Best Actor | Robert Duvall Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career.... |
Lost | |
| Best Supporting Actor | Michael O'Keefe Michael O'Keefe Michael Raymond O'Keefe is an American film and television actor.- Early life :O'Keefe was born Raymond Peter O'Keefe, Jr. in Mount Vernon, New York, the oldest of seven children in a devoutly Roman Catholic Irish American family. His father was a law professor at Fordham University, as well as... |
Lost | ||
| Arthur (1981) | Best Actor | Dudley Moore Dudley Moore Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television... |
Lost | |
| Best Supporting Actor | John Gielgud John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937... |
Won | ||
| Amadeus Amadeus (film) Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the... (1984) |
Best Picture | Won | ||
| Best Actor | F. Murray Abraham F. Murray Abraham Fahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface... |
Won | ||
| Tom Hulce Tom Hulce Thomas Edward "Tom" Hulce is an American actor and theater producer. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Mozart in the movie Amadeus and his role as "Pinto" in National Lampoon's Animal House. Additional acting awards included a total of four Golden Globe... |
Lost | |||
| Best Director | Miloš Forman Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for... |
Won | ||
| Broadway Danny Rose Broadway Danny Rose Broadway Danny Rose is a 1984 American black-and-white comedy film written, directed by and starring Woody Allen. It was screened out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.- Plot :... (1984) |
Best Director | Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema... |
Lost | |
| Ran Ran (film) is a 1985 Japanese-French jidaigeki film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film starred Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-era warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. It also stars Mieko Harada as the wife of Ichimonji's eldest son... (1985) |
Best Director | Akira Kurosawa Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;... |
Lost | |
| Platoon Platoon (film) Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth.... (1986) |
Best Picture | Oliver Stone Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on... |
Won | |
| Best Supporting Actor | Tom Berenger Tom Berenger Tom Berenger is an American actor known mainly for his roles in action films.-Early life:Berenger was born as Thomas Michael Moore in Chicago to an Irish Catholic family. Berenger's father was a printer for the Chicago Sun-Times. Berenger has a sister, Susan... |
Lost | ||
| Willem Dafoe Willem Dafoe Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group... |
Lost | |||
| Hannah and Her Sisters Hannah and Her Sisters Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner... (1986) |
Best Picture | Lost | ||
| Best Director | Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema... |
Lost | ||
| Best Supporting Actor | Michael Caine Michael Caine Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules .... |
Won | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Dianne Wiest Dianne Wiest Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:... |
Won | ||
| Hoosiers Hoosiers Hoosiers is a 1986 sports film about a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship. It is loosely based on the Milan High School team that won the 1954 state championship.... (1986) |
Best Supporting Actor | Dennis Hopper Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant... |
Lost | |
| Throw Momma from the Train Throw Momma from the Train Throw Momma from the Train is a 1987 American black comedy film. It was inspired by the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train, which also plays a role in the film... (1987) |
Best Supporting Actress | Anne Ramsey Anne Ramsey Anne Ramsey was an American stage, television, and film actress. She is probably most famous for her roles as Mama Fratelli in The Goonies and as Mrs... |
Lost | |
| Mississippi Burning Mississippi Burning Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime drama film loosely based on the FBI investigation into the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964. The film focuses on two fictional FBI agents who investigate the murders... (1988) |
Best Picture | Lost | ||
| Best Director | Alan Parker Alan Parker Sir Alan William Parker, CBE is an English film director, producer, writer and actor. He has been active in both the British cinema and American cinema and was a founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain.-Life and career:... |
Lost | ||
| Best Actor | Gene Hackman Gene Hackman Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde... |
Lost | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Frances McDormand Frances McDormand Frances Louise McDormand is an American film and stage actress. She has starred in a number of films, including her Academy Award-winning performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo, in 1996... |
Lost | ||
| Married to the Mob Married to the Mob Married to the Mob is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Modine.Michelle Pfeiffer, in something of a departure from her previous roles, gave an acclaimed lead performance as a gangster's widow from Brooklyn, opposite Matthew Modine as the... (1988) |
Best Supporting Actor | Dean Stockwell Dean Stockwell Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, with a career spanning over 65 years. As a child actor under contract to MGM he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh and The Green Years; as a young adult he played a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and... |
Lost | |
| Crimes and Misdemeanors Crimes and Misdemeanors Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 black comedy written, directed by and co-starring Woody Allen, alongside Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston and Joanna Gleason.... (1989) |
Best Director | Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema... |
Lost | |
| Best Supporting Actor | Martin Landau Martin Landau Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999... |
Lost | ||
| Dances With Wolves Dances with Wolves Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a... (1990) |
Best Picture | Won | ||
| Best Director | Kevin Costner Kevin Costner Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J... |
Won | ||
| Best Actor | Lost | |||
| Best Supporting Actor | Graham Greene Graham Greene (actor) Graham Greene is a Canadian actor who has worked on stage, and in film and TV productions in Canada, England and the United States.-Early life:... |
Lost | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Mary McDonnell Mary McDonnell Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves, and she is also very well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife... |
Lost | ||
| The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | Best Picture | Won | ||
| Best Director | Jonathan Demme Jonathan Demme Robert Jonathan Demme is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, he has also directed the acclaimed movies Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, the Talking Heads concert movie Stop... |
Won | ||
| Best Actor | Anthony Hopkins Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television... |
Won | ||
| Best Actress | Jodie Foster Jodie Foster Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress.... |
Won | ||
| Love Field Love Field (film) Love Field is a 1992 American independent drama film written by Don Roos and directed by Jonathan Kaplan, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert... (1992) |
Best Actress | Michelle Pfeiffer Michelle Pfeiffer Michelle Marie Pfeiffer is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1980 in The Hollywood Knights, but first garnered mainstream attention with her performance in Brian De Palma's Scarface . Pfeiffer has won numerous awards for her work... |
Lost | |
| Blue Sky (1994) | Best Actress | Jessica Lange Jessica Lange Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.Lange was discovered by producer... |
Won | |
| Ulee's Gold Ulee's Gold Ulee's Gold is a 1997 film written and directed by Victor Nuñez, and starring Peter Fonda in the title role. Co-stars include Patricia Richardson, Christine Dunford, Tom Wood, Jessica Biel, J. Kenneth Campbell, Steven Flynn, Dewey Weber, and Vanessa Zima... (1997) |
Best Actor | Peter Fonda Peter Fonda Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda... |
Lost |
Orion's library today
Almost all of Orion's post-1982 releases, as well as most of the AIP and Filmways backlogs and all the television output originally produced and distributed by Orion Television, now bear the MGM name. However, in most cases, the 1980s Orion logo has been retained or added, in the case of the Filmways and AIP libraries.Most ancillary rights to Orion's back catalog from the 1978–1982 joint venture period remain with Warner Bros., including such movies as Caddyshack
Caddyshack
Caddyshack is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and written by Brian Doyle-Murray, Ramis, and Douglas Kenney. It stars Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, Michael O'Keefe, Cindy Morgan, and Bill Murray...
, 10
10 (film)
10 is a 1979 romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bo Derek, Dudley Moore, and Julie Andrews. Considered a trend-setting film at the time, and one of the year's biggest box office hits, the film made superstars of Derek and Moore....
, Arthur, Excalibur
Excalibur (film)
Excalibur is a 1981 dramatic fantasy film directed, produced and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Adapted from the 15th century Arthurian romance, Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, Excalibur features the music of Richard Wagner...
, and Prince of the City
Prince of the City
Prince of the City is an American crime drama film about an NYPD officer who chooses to expose police corruption for idealistic reasons. The character of Daniel Ciello was based on real-life NYPD Narcotics Detective Robert Leuci and the script was based on Robert Daley's 1978 book of the same name...
. Some post-1982 films originally released by Orion - Lionheart
Lionheart (1987 film)
Lionheart is a 1987 adventure film directed by Academy Award-winner Franklin J. Schaffner...
, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Unbearable Lightness of Being , written by Milan Kundera, is a philosophical novel about two men, two women, a dog and their lives in the Prague Spring of the Czechoslovak Communist period in 1968. Although written in 1982, the novel was not published until two years later, in France...
and Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
(the latter two being Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz is an American film producer and former record company executive. He has won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and in 1996 was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award....
productions) - are currently distributed by Warner Bros. as well.
Woody Allen's films A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a 1982 film written, directed by and starring Woody Allen.The plot is loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. This was the first of 13 movies that Allen would make starring Mia Farrow...
and Zelig
Zelig
Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Zelig, a curiously nondescript enigma who is discovered for his remarkable ability to transform himself to resemble anyone he's near.The film was shot almost entirely in...
are the only Orion films from the original joint venture period now owned by MGM. Orion releases produced by the Hemdale Film Corporation
Hemdale Film Corporation
Hemdale Film Corporation, known as Hemdale Communications after 1993, was an independent film production company and distributor founded in London in 1967 as the Hemdale Company by actor David Hemmings and his manager, John Daly. Hemdale was initially founded as a talent agency that helped launch...
and Nelson Entertainment
Embassy Pictures
Embassy Pictures Corporation was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, This Is Spinal Tap and Escape from New York.-Founding:The company was founded in 1942 by producer Joseph E...
are included in MGM's library as well, and are incorporated into the Orion library. MGM did not acquire the Hemdale films, however, (which includes The Terminator, Hoosiers, and Platoon) until it bought the Epic Productions library in 1998. The Nelson films (including the Bill & Ted films) were not acquired until MGM bought the pre-1996 library of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was a film studio, founded in 1979 as a European competitor to Hollywood, but eventually sold and merged with Universal Pictures in 1999....
, Nelson's successor-in-interest, although the television and digital rights to certain films are now held by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, with television syndication handled on behalf of Paramount by Trifecta Entertainment & Media
Trifecta Entertainment & Media
Trifecta Entertainment & Media is an American entertainment company founded in 2006. The company's founders previously held jobs as executives at MGM Television. Trifecta is primarily a distribution company and also handles advertising sales in exchange for syndication deals with local television...
.
Many of the film and television holdings of The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was an independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., the son of the famous Hollywood mogul, Samuel Goldwyn, in 1979.-Background:...
have now also been incorporated into the Orion library (with ownership currently held by MGM), and the copyright on some of this material is held by Orion, except The New Adventures of Flipper now carries the MGM Television Entertainment copyright.