TriStar Pictures

TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled Tri-Star until 1991) is a film subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1982 as Nova Pictures.

The concept for TriStar came about in 1982 when Columbia Pictures (then a subsidiary of Coca-Cola), HBO, and CBS (who, despite their former full name - Columbia Broadcasting System - was unrelated to Columbia Pictures, although the film studio did produce some series for CBS) decided to pool resources to split the ever-growing costs of making movies, creating Nova Pictures as a joint venture. Their first release, in 1984, was The Natural, starring Robert Redford. Their second movie was a flop remake of the 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture Where the Boys Are. During this venture, many of Tri-Star's releases were released on VHS by either RCA-Columbia Pictures Home Video (now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), CBS/FOX Video (now CBS Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), and HBO Video.

CBS dropped out of the venture in 1984, though they still distributed some of TriStar's films on home video until at least 1992. In April 1987, Tri-Star entered into the television business as Tri-Star Television. In December 1987, HBO dropped out of the Tri-Star venture as well and Columbia Pictures bought their venture shares and merged Columbia and Tri-Star into Columbia Pictures Entertainment, also creating Columbia/Tri-Star. Both companies continued to produce and distribute films under their separate names.

In 1989, all of Coke's entertainment holdings were acquired by Sony Corporation of Japan, who merged Columbia and Tri-Star, but continued to use the separate names. Sony Pictures Entertainment later revived TriStar Television as a television production banner in 1991 and co-launched Columbia TriStar Television in 1994 with its sister television studio Columbia Pictures Television.

Around summer 1998, Sony Pictures Entertainment merged Columbia and TriStar to form Columbia TriStar Pictures (or Columbia TriStar Entertainment, Inc. or the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group) but just like Columbia Pictures Entertainment, both divisions continued producing and distributing films under their own names.

TriStar was relaunched in 2004 as a marketing and acquisitions unit that will have a "particular emphasis on genre films."&lt;ref&gt;&lt;/ref&gt;

TriStar was the theatrical distributor for many films produced by Carolco Pictures (the rights to only one of their films, Cliffhanger, has been retained by TriStar).

About the TriStar Pictures logo
The company's logo of a Pegasus (either stationary or flying across the screen), introduced in 1984, has become something of a cultural icon. It has also spawned many parodies, including one on the popular animated television show Family Guy. The second logo was originally painted by Alan Reingold and debuted in 1993.&lt;ref&gt;&lt;/ref&gt;